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nigelj at 11:08 AM on 24 October 2024Climate Risk
Jess Scarlett, I appreciate your concerns, but the amount of CO2 released by drilling holes is totally insignificant. Even volcanic eruptions have not released enough CO2 to explain the recent warming trend. Scientists have spent thousands of hours researching these issues and every possible cause of warming and every possible source source of CO2 before ruling them out. You can find this material with a simple google search and by scanning through the information in the "climate myths" box on the left hand side of this page.
If you are suspicious of the temperature record in Australia then I suggest please look at the global surface temperature record over land. Look at the global temperature in the oceans. Look at the ballon temperature record. look at the upper atmosphere temperature record. They all show roughly the same warming trend. Urban and rural areas show the same warming trend. One set of data might be in error, but it seems very unlikely to me several would be.
Also sometimes the raw data has problems, so needs adjustments. For example data from early last century from ships were found to be in error, and the raw data was adjusted DOWN so actually reduced the warming record. This is hardly a sign of people wanting to exagerate the warming trend. If you are still sceptical about temperature data, look at the UAH satellite temperature record compiled by Roy Spencer a scientist and a climate change sceptic, but even his temperature record shows robust warming.
If you still dont believe the global temperature records, and that the world is warming, you are beyond being reasoned with.
Your comments do suggest you may have been persuaded by conspiracy theories. The idea that there is an international movement by tens of thousands of meterologists and scientists to deliberately exaggerate warming is just insanity. There is no rational motivation for such a thing. No government wants expensive problems to deal with and is certainly not going to invent them when it gets plenty dumped on its plate anyway. It would be impossible to have a giant conspiracy like this and keep it quiet. Some of these guys would leak the truth. Its like the idea that NASA faked the moon landings. This doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.
Yes the renewables have their downsides and require a lot of mining. And yes the corporate sector benefit from building renewables and sometimes the business world is a dirty affair. But what is your better solution to the climate problem? Because its a huge environmental problem that is affecting not just human society, but the natural world, and you say you are a greenie, right?
Lots of your statements are false at PC points out. And evidence free. I suggest don't let any concerns you might have that we are potentially neglecting our various other environmental problems bias you against the climate issue. I don't see evidence we are neglecting other problems. Personally I think we have to deal with both the climate problem and other environmental problems together , and humanity is obviously able to deal with several problems at the same time.
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Philippe Chantreau at 09:14 AM on 24 October 2024Climate Risk
Off topic word salad interspersed by demonstrably false assertions...
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Jess Scarlett at 06:55 AM on 24 October 2024Climate Risk
Being a Greenie all my life in Australia Ive bern watching this machine funded climate change take over the whole Green movement. Ive watched thousands of forests removed for external companies for woid chip and complete devastation of climate by removal of carbon balanced cooling environments. As I now start to see a massive alkiance with tge metal industry and using net zero bs agenda to deep sea mine the largest carbon storage in our deep seas for matals for the so called S.M.A.R.T technoligical movement that is part of the W.E.F agenda its very alatming to see how this doesnt look as corrupt as the whole petrolium industry. Under most forests in rich dence metals in the soils.. I just cant help but research back to around 2008 to 2009 when the IPCC shifted focus to humans effect on global warming so only collecting data on this rather than the vast reasons on global carbon increse. Drilling in the earth can release carbon and thats exactly what this new political global agenda is about. The IPCC was done for hiking temperatures and changing glacier melting times by over 100x the year amount. With all the removal of trees around the planet for toxic solar panels is a direct attack on sustainability. Recently hearing Bill Gates saying investing in trees is not science. Yet we have 50 countries playing with geo engineering as we debate means any data from here on is not natural or at least influenced. Finding these documents have become much longer a search based on the massive influx of paid science and topics of conversation. If anyone looks up Shares in Geo Engineering it will prove how much private companies are playing god at the moment. My father was a top scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne. In 2013-2015 most accurate data analyists and records were defunded and CSIRO and NASA gagged them all. Its a very big hot debate and appreciate researching way back if you commonly use government controlled internet search engines. I am driving up as passenger in a car.. So I apologise in advance for my 1st draft off top of head response. Im also dyslexic but I love this site and especially love the comments. I actually cannot go back to fix via phone.
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nigelj at 05:42 AM on 24 October 2024Why widening highways doesn’t reduce traffic congestion
I live in New Zealand, and we have experienced the issue of induced travel, and in quite dramatic form. About 30 years New Zealand started experiencing increasingly severe traffic congestion due in part to accelerated rates of immigration, and in part to a policy that allowed the importation of cheap used Japanese vehicles. You can imagine the ressult of this!
About 15 years ago it reached crisis point and the Government engaged in a large road building programme, and on occasion widened existing roads primariy to reduce this traffic congestion and travel times. It worked for a few years, and then those traffic times start to creep back up, so induced travel is a very real thing.
The filling up of the new roads is not all due to immigration pressure or cheap cars because those trends have stabilised. Its induced travel. The roads mostly had a rather poor cost benefit ratio and this assumed congestion would stay low. So its like we are constantly running to try to catch up, and we are throwing a lot of money and resources at the problem for meagre returns.
In my view the problem goes back to urban design. Cheap fossil fuels have enabled massive technological advances and this created a model of centralised cities with their factories, and this separates people from the food supply and their workplaces, and makes it essential to have effective long distance transport links. And instead of compact walkable cities countries like America and New Zealand opted for spread out suburban living because the wealth creation allowed everyone to own a car and a suburban home. But this whole structure is utterly dependent on the car and a complex roading system.
New Zealand has experimented with pushing things back to the walkable city concept, (which I personally quite like) with encouraging highrise apartments and high density living, making improvements for pedestrian travel, and creating bicycle lanes on the roads, and car free zones, and reduced car parking in shopping areas and improvements to things like buses and train transport.
The problem is there has been enormous push back from all sorts of groups of people. People resent losing their sunlight and views when high density homes are built next door. Car owners are frustrated that dedicated bicycle lanes create less space on the roads for cars, and less car parks available. Retailers are angry that reduced car parks outside their shops is allegedly loosing them business. As a result the current conservative leaning government are downscaling cycle lanes and building more roads.
Some of these complaints seem valid - such as having a 4 story height apartment block cutting out your sunlight and privacy, but some complaints are less valid. Complaints that buiding bicycle lanes and reducing car parking badly affects buiness are less valid. Studies show it doesnt cause business to suffer, probably because its countered by easier access for people walking or cycling. Refer:
thespinoff.co.nz/science/17-05-2024/cycle-lanes-are-good-for-business-actually
However making public transport work better has proven very difficult.You need a lot of buses to get people exactly where they need to go in one trip and this becomes costly. People arent so keen on getting two or three buses to get to their destination, which is understandable and especially when buses are notoriously unreliable. But obviously there are at least some things you can do to improve and expand public transport.
Of course change on the scale we are looking at is rarely smooth or quick or easy, but we do face an enormous challenge, because trillions of dollars of infrastructure are designed around the car (essentially) so changing this wont happen overnight. However other living options to the walkable city are not so viable. We cant all live idyllic lives in little settlements in the country because we need at least some big cities that are closely integrated with industrial production, assuming we want a technology based future.
So the walkable big city concept seems like its the best option overall. I doubt even that can totally replace the car, for obvious reasons, but it could make us a lot less car dependent and that helps. Famous quote: "The perfect is the enemy of the good" (Voltaire)
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Bob Loblaw at 23:58 PM on 23 October 2024Climate Risk
FYI, there is a fairly active discussion of this post on its original location at AndThenTheresPhysics. The link is in the green box at the top of this post, but here it is again for convenience.
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2024/10/16/climate-risk/
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walschuler at 04:56 AM on 23 October 2024Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
Every bit of new cooling adds to the problem, regardless of scale, because the removed heat can only be ejected to the receiving reservoir if it is at higher temperature than the reservoir, and in doing so raises the temperature of the reservoir, making it necessary to raise the ejected heat's temperature even further. This is a nasty positive feedback loop that noticably raises the cooling load and outdoor temperature in cities, where the ejected heat load per squre foot is high and air circulation to air outside city limits may be poor.
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michael sweet at 01:35 AM on 23 October 2024Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
Neck fans are are very well and enclosed sports stadiums might keep fans cool but who will cool off all the cattle and other farm animals raised outside? It is impossible to provide air conditioning for all animals. Not to mention that basic crops like corn, grass and wheat are heat sensitive. Look at what it is like around Phoenix. If it gets that hot throughout Texas and further north agricultural production will plummet.
Shaded cooling chairs to watch soccer are fine but what about the kids running around with no shade? They will all overheat. Think these "solutions" through. Everyone cannot move to Canada.
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pattimer at 20:51 PM on 22 October 2024Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
More GW meaning more personal cooling and home cooling a bit of a positive feedback there. I suppose one might argue less space heating in the winter required though .
Regardless a more divided world means more procrastination is tolerated.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:35 AM on 22 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
MA Roger @59,
Thanks for the additional thoughts and information.
I agree that there could be a lot of aspects to the explanation of 'all of it'. I probably should have said something like 'All that is missing is a robust set of explanations that collectively address all of it without being contradictory'.
I will continue to follow the development of the understanding aware that changes of current understanding may be required. But, contrary to the desired beliefs of the likes of Nikolov & Zeller, those changes of understanding are very unlikely to reduce the need for humans to rapidly end their collective harmful impacts on many of this amazing planet's environmental systems, not just the climate system.
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MA Rodger at 20:13 PM on 20 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
One Planet Only Forever @58,
I'm of the view that "a robust explanation that is consistent with all of it" is probably asking too much given the "all of it" contains a lot of very intriguing stuff. It thus continues to attract at least my attention. Why, for instance, does the CERES data show the planet reflects short wave in wobbles that are coincidental with wobbles in global temperature (as are the measured of cloud amount wobbles) but the wobbles in long wave IR emissions are apparently five months late? And the big issue - why is the longer-term rate of change of global temperature not responding to the longer-term rise in EEI? That is, why does the CERES EEI data show EEI trebling when the long-term rate of global warming increased just 50%.I did think to plot out a graph showing the CERES EEI data measured in Hiroshima/Second and the graphic I adapted has a plot of the accelerations-decelerations of GisTemp L-OTI 1950-to date. This is posted here 20th October 2024.
I also note the link to the recent rambling but amusing Nikolov & Zeller paper @57 is misdirecting. The paper is HERE.
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FiMason at 19:09 PM on 18 October 2024Remembering our friend John Mason
Hello - I'm Fi, John's sister.
We say farewell to John at 14:00 BST on Tuesday 22nd October 2024 at Aberystwyth Crematorium. All are welcome.The service will also be live streamed at website https://watch.obitus.com
Please input the following details:
Username: rida7538
Password: 992865The broadcast will start a few minutes before the service commences and will last for the duration of the service. Following this, the recording will be 'offline' for a couple of days before becoming available to watch again for a further 28 days.
You can try these login details ahead of the service and if successful, you will see a video of a waterfall.
I hope you will be able to join in person or online.
Thank you.
Fi -
One Planet Only Forever at 07:53 AM on 18 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
MA Roger @57,
Thanks for the additional information and thoughts.
There is lots of evidence. All that is missing is a robust explanation that is consistent with all of it.
However, in spite of that detailed explanation not yet being developed, there is little doubt that things will continue to be made worse by continued harmful unsustainable human activities and their impacts (sort of like the harm of smoking not being in doubt even though the exact mechanism of the harm done was not certain).
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Eclectic at 04:24 AM on 17 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Moderator Bob , thank you for the notification of sock-puppetry.
Passing strange, is it not, that whenever a certain anonymous author (under numerous pseudonyms) keeps arguing that 20+20=37 . . . he keeps assuming that the editor won't recognise the foolish mathematical error being repeated year after year.
One is reminded of Einstein's definition of insanity.
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MA Rodger at 21:02 PM on 16 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
One Planet Only Forever @55,
The CO2 level in the atmosphere has been accelerating through the decades and indeed the resulting climate forcing has also been accelerating. The total GHG forcing is less 'acceleraty' due to the cuts in CFC emissions back in the 1990s. The table below shows the average annual increase in CO2 forcing and total GHG forcing (WM^-2) from the NOAA AGGI.1980s ... ... 0.026 ... ... 0.047
1990s ... ... 0.023 ... ... 0.033
2000s ... ... 0.028 ... ... 0.033
2010s ... ... 0.034 ... ... 0.040
2020s ... ... 0.032 ... ... 0.040The big omission is the negative forcings from aerosols and a lot of ink has been spilt addressing that particular omission. (For instance, the marine regs of 2020 have often been mentioned as a possible cause of the "bananas" temperatures seen from the back half of 2023.) While it is a big omission, I'm not of the view that it will not prove an essential ingredient in understanding the EEI and 'bomb increase' measured both by CERES and in OHC.
There are plenty of rabbit-holes to jump down when tring to explain the CERES data. (I note recently a couple of the 'usual suspects' Nikolov & Zeller
trying to argue that it is the 'bomb increase' that has been forcing the whole of AGW.)The 'bomb increase' is a net result from (1) a warming world which is thus leaking more IR into space and thus lowering EEI and (2), a less reflective world due to a reducing albedo increasing EEI. These both present reasonably good correlations with global temperature (1) -1.53Wm^-2/ºC and (2) +2.81Wm^-2/ºC with thus a net increase in EEI running +1.2Wm^-2/ºC.
What makes me sceptical about any very significant role of aerosol-reduction in the albedo numbers is both that there is the significant correlation with temperature wobbles (which suggests the reduced albedo results from climate feedbacks) and that the peiod where that albedo-temperature correlation looks less than convincing (2007-14 which are those dreaded hiatus years) doesn't coincide with any explained event (like the marine emissions regs) where we would expect something to be seen. [I posted a pink graphic of these correlations 5th December 2023, which you can scroll down-to here]
There remains the thorny question of whhat lies behind these correlations.
Back-of-envelope calculations appear to suggest something must be at work beyond simple AGW. The AGGI numbers above suggest the 2000-20 additional forcing totals +0.73WM^-2 which is roughly equal to the EEI increase through the period. But with SAT also rising +0.6ºC through the period, increases in AGGI and in EEI should not at all be equal.
If they are actual correlations with global temperature, what was happening pre-2000?
Do they otherwise include some wobble or some aerosol-effect?
Another rabbit hole is that while the rate of change in temperature (acceleration) over short periods fits with the wobbles in EEI, the increasing EEI does not fit at all well with the longer term temperature accelerations.
So there is a lot of rabbit holes and to-date no sensible-sounding explanation.
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Eclectic at 20:56 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
NavierStokes @719. :
The basic principles of absorption/emission and kinetic transfer of energy are (in the OP) set out and illustrated in a simple manner which allows the reader to understand the obvious implications.
So to that extent, your question is moot (= void).
If you wish to re-write the Basic Rebuttal in a superior form, please post it here as a demonstration. Readers would doubtless be interested to review your efforts ~ and the Editors may well accept a superior replacement, or at least make some modifications to the OP.
Per Ardua Ad Astra.
Moderator Response:[BL] Unfortunately, NavierStokes is yet another sock puppet of a user that has polluted these threads over the years. As sock puppetry is a violation of the Comments Policy, NavierStokes will no longer be participating here - until he makes yet another attempt to break the rules and create another sock puppet (forcing us to ban him again...)
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NavierStokes at 18:40 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Eclectic@718:
Whoever wrote the Basic Rebuttal doesn't understand the greenhouse effect at all. They seem to believe that the GHG molecules absorb IR radiation directly from the incoming sunlight instead of the upwelling terrestrial IR from the surface as indicated in the following quote:
Sunshine consists mostly of ultraviolet, visible light and infra-red photons. Objects warmed by the sun then re-emit energy photons at infra-red wavelengths. Like other greenhouse gases, CO2 has the ability to absorb infra-red photons.
Remember that 99%+ of the incoming EMR from the sun is in the visible spectrum and is absorbed by the earth (except of course for what is reflected as albedo). The earth then re-emits this absorbed energy as a 288-294 deg. K blackbody at the surface. We then get the greenhouse effect when the GHG molecules absorb this upward-bound IR and convert it into thermal energy in some manner. Therefore, this Basic Rebuttal badly needs to be rewritten and my question still stands.
[Snip]
Moderator Response:[BL] The people writing the rebuttals here understand the greenhouse effect far better than you and your many sock puppets do. It is unfortunate that your stubbornness prevents you from ever learning any of the many things you clearly do not understand.
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Eclectic at 17:50 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
NavierStokes @717 :
Your question is answered in the Basic version of the Rebuttal.
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NavierStokes at 15:42 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
I have a question concerning the Advanced Rebuttal for this "Is the CO2 effect saturated?" argument. I agree that thermal energy is spread around and transferred upward by radiation and convection and that IR emissions are occurring at all levels in the atmosphere. What is not mentioned, however, is where and how the CO2 molecules absorb IR energy from the 15 micron band for release as thermal energy in the greenhouse effect.
[snip] Could someone clarify this?
Moderator Response:[BL] These and many other questions you have had over the years, in many sock puppets, have been clarified over, and over, and over again. Nothing will every make it into your closed mind, so why bother?
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cctpp85 at 04:06 AM on 12 October 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41 2024
Honest candidates need supports, even if it looks like spamming.
Multi-model is a well-known technique to sample uncertainties. Mixing altitudes is a proficient means to damp out the impact of all surface station biases which are larger in the past. As you can see, since 1980 changing from surface to 850 mb is not the reason of uncertainties whereas changing from ERA5 to NCEP/NCAR is one of the reasons of uncertainties. The real interest of 850 mb is that you can use 20CRv3 since 1900 and NCEP/NCAR since 1980.
[snip]
Before you delete my comment, [snip] my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552583485316
Moderator Response:[BL Off-topic, non-responsive stuff snipped.
Alas, I had hoped that by commenting as a non-moderator I would encourage you to rethink your ways. Clearly not.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:03 AM on 12 October 2024Climate change made Hurricane Helene and other 2024 disasters more damaging, scientists find
A tragic reality is the ways that the economic activity to attempt to repair the damage done will get counted as part of GDP and its growth.
The repair and recovery actions may include improvements on the conditions prior to the tragedy. But a substantial part of the activity is just trying to get back to the conditions prior to the damage done. And in some cases the repair and recovery actions will not return things to the way they were before the damage was done.
A big picture view of Global Warming exposes the global example of this problem. Efforts trying to undo the global warming-climate change harm done to date, everywhere, not just in a 'region of concern', may count as 'positive' GDP. But it will fail to fully repair and fully make amends for the damage done.
For GDP to indicate improvement it needs to exclude 'repair and recovery actions'.
There is an understandable 'permanent debt due to climate change impacts' that will be experienced by humanity far into the future.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:40 AM on 12 October 2024You will not escape the climate crisis
prove we are smart,
I am quite confident that the most successful path to developing lasting improvements for the future of humanity would be 'everyone pursuing increased awareness and improved understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful to others'.
History, recent and the distant past, is full of evidence of sub-sets of the totality of humanity (the total being all people living today and into the future) benefiting by getting away with acting in ways that are detrimental to Others, especially being detrimental to 'future Others'.
And even when the harm done happens to people they know the 'sub-set benefiting from causing harm will tend to try to find ways to excuse the harm done by their unsustainable unjustifiable pursuits of personal benefit. Their excuses will include:
- denial that the harm is real (claims about fake crisis actors)
- claiming that others are causing the harm
- claiming that Others are more harmful than they are
- blaming those who are harmed
- claiming that those who are harmed also benefit
- claiming that the harmful actions are required to support actions that reduce the harm done
So, I am also quite confident that an 'improving lasting future for humanity' requires the powerful regions on the planet ensure that their leadership is always governing based on learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others (especially the future others).
So, effectively making those who try to pursue popularity through misinformation and disinformation 'the losers' is essential to the future of humanity.
So, there will always be a tribal conflict between the harmful misleaders and those who promote learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.
The requirement is for the misleaders to not be significantly influential - everywhere on every issue. That appears to be very difficult to achieve.I hope humanity has a lasting improving future. But there is significant reason to doubt that it will.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:17 AM on 12 October 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41 2024
cctpp85 @ 1:
Is that comment directed towards a specific part of the OP, which covers new research? If not, it is off-topic here, and you should use the search function to find a thread where it is on-topic.
In addition, you are extremely short on details as to your methodology. Your graph (based on the legend) appears to mix surface temperatures with 850mb temperatures. Why? What are your data sources? How is your analysis done? Your opinion about your version bears little weight if nobody else knows how you arrive at your results.
You have previously been warned (on this thread) about our inability to read your mind, and your unwillingness to engage with people asking questions. Please do not repeat that pattern.
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cctpp85 at 18:57 PM on 11 October 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41 2024
My version has +/- 0.06 uncertainty for each year in average since 1980, which I think is more secure than the +/- 0.02 uncertainty as communicated by individual institutes.
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prove we are smart at 08:55 AM on 11 October 2024Climate change made Hurricane Helene and other 2024 disasters more damaging, scientists find
It's an increasing self destructive path we are on as now there are so many more of us-yes,other reasons too! An urgent reset is needed to change peoples thoughts/habits as to what is important.
As for myself,I became a tree crop farmer for the last 2/3 of my working life and raising my little family in a small village.In hindsight this kept me grounded although my joy for fifty years was up in the air,gliding on natures air currents!
These quotes are from some men and women who soared far higher than me and really lived the big picture.This phenomena is named the Overview Effect.
"we're seeing very clearly that if the earth becomes sick,then we become sick,if the earth dies then we are going die.People sense that something is wrong but they are stuck struggling to go back and find what the real root of the problems are and I think what we need to come to is the realization that it's not just fixing an economic or political problem but it's a basic world view,a basic understanding of who we are that's at stake. Part of that is to come up with a new story,a new perspective,a new way to approach this. To shift our behaviours in a way that it leads to a more sustainable approach to our civilization as opposed to a destuctive one".
Send the decision makers up in space-who would of thought?
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:57 AM on 11 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
I forgot a link in my message @55,
Based on NOAA (see here) ...
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:55 AM on 11 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
MA Roger @54,
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I now appreciate that the ‘reason’ or attribution for the EEI rate appearing to have increased from 4 bombs to 9 bombs (or higher) is still not fully understood.
The annual CO2 level increase now appears to be about 40% higher than the average from 1980 to 2010 (see below). That does not appear to reasonably explain the more than doubling of the EEI in a way that is reasonably consistent with the expectation that no significant warming will occur after human impacts on GHG levels are effectively ‘net-zero’.
Could it be that the magnitude of annual GHG increase is significantly exceeding the rate of annual EEI to achieve the new balanced state? That would mean that there is a growing amount of ‘yet to be realized’ global warming. However, if the wind-down of GHG impacts is able to be slow enough, the reduction happens sooner and a more significant reduction happens earlier, then that excess warming could be realized by the time that human impacts become effectively net-zero. That would be seen by the EEI not declining at the time that the rate of CO2 increase begins to significantly decline.
Based on NOAA (see here) the approximate 10 year average annual increases of CO2 levels were as follows:
0.8 ppm - in the 60s (1960 to 1970)
1.3 ppm - 70s
1.6 ppm - 80s
1.5 ppm - 90s
1.9 ppm – 2000s
2.4 ppm - 2010sAverage annual increase from 1980 to 2010 = 1.7 ppm
Average of 2010 to 2020 = 2.4 (with 2018 at 2.4 and 2019 at 2.5), an increase of about 40% compared to the period used to calculate the 4 bomb per second rate.
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prove we are smart at 10:23 AM on 10 October 2024You will not escape the climate crisis
Yes, mitigation policies are 100% better than forced adaptation measures and surely educated people can elect educated leaders-( I wish).
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MA Rodger at 21:14 PM on 9 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
One Planet Only Forever @52,
The difference (4 bombs & 9 bombs) is indeed due to a different EEI numbers which are increasing with time. The OP uses 8Zj/y. The 1.12Wm^-2 quoted by philalethes @48 is 18Zj/y. But even that could be now out-of-date.
The actual EEI wobbles a lot and through 2019 12-month average CERES number is 1.30Wm^-2.
The quoted 'EEI (from 2019) = 1.12 W/m²' value presumably comes from Loeb et al (2021) 'Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth’s Heating Rate' which puts it as "1.12 ± 0.48 W m−2 in mid-2019," this based on a linear (OLS) fit through CERES data, a linear rise 2000-19 backed by the OHC data for the same period. The CERES linear fit gave a +0.05Wm^−2/year increase in EEI, the OHC +0.04Wm^−2/year, both with big error bars (making the results barely statistically significant at 2sd).
While we now have had a few more years of looking at EEI, the 2000-to-date OLS thro' the CERES data is still yielding the same basic result suggesting today a value of 1.37Wm^-2/y. But the point of such an analysis (which as a strict linear value would point to AGW starting only in 1995) is to work towards an attribution of the increasing EEI.
(The EEI numbers presented by the ClimateChangeTracker EEI page stretches back to 1985 when estimates of EEI were cooling due to volcanic eruptions (El Chichón 1982 & Pinatuba 1991). Within the wobbles, the latest 12-month average (to June 2024) is +0.95Wm^-2.)
Reconciling CERES numbers with longer in-situ OHC data isn't entirely achieved with such OHC data significantly lower, although OHC calculated from sea level (geodetic) data gives a good match to CERES. The graphic below is from Cheng et al (2024). Note numbers in the insert in graph suggests 2020-23 OHC rising at 17.7Zj/y.
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nigelj at 14:56 PM on 9 October 2024You will not escape the climate crisis
I suspect the world will only take climate change seriously when a heatwave kills something way out of the boundaries of normality maybe 300,000. It's like covid when it was a small thing in China nobody was too worried but when large numbers started dying in Italy the world woke up. But I could be wrong so it's still Important to promote mitigation policies.
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prove we are smart at 07:59 AM on 9 October 2024You will not escape the climate crisis
Of course no life will escape the increasing effects from climate change and we know dealing with its consequences will vary from annoyance to survivability depending on many factors - especially your bank account.
Further checking out Mr Dressler's re-post and his informative articles, i could particulary relate to this comment ...
John Hardman
John’s Substack
Aug 4, 2023
Liked by Andrew Dessler"I am reminded of the silly Monty Python skit where the knight confronts the king and is progressively dismembered while staying defiant. “It is but a flesh wound!” he bellows as his dismembered arm lies at his feet. Denial is not bound by sanity.
Change happens using the same path as the grief cycle: denial, bargaining, anger, surrender, and acceptance. Logically we should be feeling the pain of climate change wounds and the financial pinch of accruing costs, but we are looping in a cycle of denial, bargaining, and anger. The question becomes what level of pain will knock us (and the rest of the natural world) to our knees and accept responsibility for our fate?
Looping in the first three stages of change allows us to play the victim and shift the blame to others which is easy and addictive. But, inevitably a reckoning happens where the wound is felt deeply and personally. The pain sears through the fog of illusion bringing us out of the clouds and back into our humanity. I shudder to think what must happen to bring us down to earth but the power of denial is formidable and we now have a lot of distractions from our pain. Monty Python showed us the bounds of our absurdity. We may just exceed them."
The distractions are increasing and I have always believed when we are faced with a common "enemy", the whole tribe would unite-put our differences to one side and work together- people, how bad does it have to get before this happens? Are we just too de-sensitized to human suffering now?
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Bob Loblaw at 07:52 AM on 9 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
OPOF @ 52:
The difference? At a guess, time. The OP is a dozen years old. Currently, the planetary energy imbalance is probably that much higher now.
If someone has current numbers, please post.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:31 AM on 9 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
Bob Loblaw @51,
Thank you for the correction and clarification.
What is the reason for the difference of 9 bombs per second as calcualed @48 and the 4 bombs per second rate?
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Bob Loblaw at 03:51 AM on 9 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
The earth being half-lit only applies to solar radiation. The 1.12 W/m2 net radiation value is global average (night and day), and already accounts for the periods of daylight and darkness.
The difference between Philalethes (comment 48) and Eclectic (comment 49) is simple units: 63GJ vs. 63TJ. In the original post, we see the Hiroshima bomb was 6.3 x 1013 Joules. That is 63 x 1012 J, 63 x 109 kj, 63 x 106 MJ, 63 x 103 GJ, or 63 TJ.
Philalethes simply mixed up TJ and GJ to end up off by 1000.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:49 AM on 9 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
Philalethes @48,
In addition to Eclectic's repsonse, only half of the Earth's surface receives sunshine energy at any moment in time.
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Eclectic at 21:26 PM on 8 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
Philalethes @48 :-
My quick glance at Wiki suggests Hiroshima yield roughly 63 TJ
leaving you with 9 bombs per second.
And planetary heat gain might actually be less than 1.12 W per m2.
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philalethes at 08:07 AM on 8 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
I've been looking at updated versions of this figure, but I seem to be getting around a factor of 1000 wrong, so if someone could point out what mistake I'm making, that'd be great.
EEI (from 2019) = 1.12 W/m²
surface area of Earth = 5.1 * 10^14 m²
1.12 W/m² * 5.1 * 10^14 m² = 571.2 TW
This means 571.2 TJ every single second.
energy released by the Hiroshima bomb as per what I found = 63 GJ
So the number of bombs per second would be:
571.2 TJ / 63 GJ = 9067
As mentioned in the beginning, this seems to be a factor of 1000 too much; what am I doing wrong here?
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BaerbelW at 20:10 PM on 6 October 2024Skeptical Science News: The Rebuttal Update Project
Cedders @21
Thanks for your comment! Without going into too many details just yet, I can tell you that we are currently working on expanding the "It's too hard" section considerably and plan to publish many additional rebuttals later this month. So - as the saying goes - "watch this space"!
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Cedders at 19:44 PM on 6 October 2024Skeptical Science News: The Rebuttal Update Project
I would also welcome any expansion of the 'it's too hard' section of myths, as this has been such a boom area since about 2015. Generally industry and society has moved from denial that climate change is a human-caused threat, to delay and sometimes fatalism ('it's too late' could be a whole new top level of the taxonomy). While there are a small rump of people with 'dismissive' attitudes to climate science, a majority of people accept there is a major problem, but are helped to feel powerless to do anything (per Michael Mann's The New Climate War).
Addressing this trand could be seen as straying into technological and economic and policy questions, but objectivity is still possible (eg citing whichever economic opinions are expressed and a range of informed views where there are no scientific facts).
This would be very helpful to deal with in the same format as there are certainly a lot of myths circulating in political circles and media. Typically the misguided arguments concern technology and what can be permitted within remaining carbon budgets, but also sometimes groups of scientists and activists. For example in the context of a climate mitigation conversation, policy-makers can express a preference for hydrogen cars over EVs or even public transport. At that point someone lie Auke Hoekstra or Michael Liebreich can explain simple facts about energy losses in electrolysis and fuels cells or combustion engines. This makes it clear that the most efficient use of renewables will not be hydrogen cars or heating, so investmeet in some hydrogen infrastructure would be a misguided dead end, rather like 'low tar' cigarettes or diesel engines. This is also a consequence of understanding from about 2009 that carbon pollution has to be cut to ('net') zero.
Essentially to get a major policy through needs people to agree it is fair, effective and beneficial. Incumbent industries want to preserve their business model and deny access to new entrants by influencing regulation. So they need to suggest clean technology uptake is inherently unfair, or that it has inherent environmental costs. Informing people about not just why stopping fossil fuels is fundamental but that the transition can generally improve equity and have environmental co-benefits is the hard task ahead.
I hope this take wasn't too off-topic. My thanks to all the SkS authors and editors for their continuing work.
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Cedders at 19:08 PM on 6 October 2024Skeptical Science News: The Rebuttal Update Project
I'm glad to read that the articles are getting a systematic refresh. Anything to make the rebuttals more accessible can help effectiveness in countering myths, misunderstanding and misinformation.
There are two reasons I can think of for the new intros. People are looking for shorter tl:dr abstracts. Secondly, information can be too technical for some audiences. Unfortunately it's hard for scientifically literate writers to know what is likely to be misunderstood, deliberately or accidentally (we know frequent examples like Greenland surface mass balance). Is the new text being tested against actual occurrences of myths?
I hope there's no need to delete much text from the passage of time and it can be edited instead. Historical perspectives can help transparency. As a hypothetical example: 'Loss of Arctic sea ice seemed in the early 2010s to be happening far faster than projections, leading some people to conclude at the time that summer sea ice would be virtually gone by 2020/whenever and headlines. Ice loss has since slowed bringing it more into line with projections.'
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Cedders at 18:49 PM on 6 October 2024Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
BTW spelling: is 'exogenic' in para 2 of basic full text intended to be 'exergonic'?
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Doug Bostrom at 15:02 PM on 6 October 2024Remembering our friend John Mason
Thank you for that, hairbear.
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michael sweet at 06:12 AM on 6 October 2024Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
David-acct at 8:
I do not need you to explain how electricity was generated in the 20th centuary. We are now replacing obsolete, polluting energy sources with cheaper, cleaner renewable sources. We need to evaluate how energy resources will contribute to a future renewable system. At the same time we want to keep prices down.
We currently have a hybrid system while the renewable system is being built. Renewable wind and solar can generate most needed power using existing peaker plants as storage. Old baseload plants cannot compete economically with cheap renewable energy. As more wind and solar is built obsolete plants are closing. Expensive coal and nuclear have closed first.
Batteries are now cheaper, more versatile and provide more grid support services than peaker plants. Batteries store extra power on sunny, windy days. As demonstrated by the EIA report you cited, (I note the EIA has always been biased against renewable energy in he past) the market is planning on building a lot of wind, solar and batteries in the next four years. Very litle, heavily subsidized, gas is planned. Everyone in the market can see the handwriting on the wall. The market is building out cheap renewables virtually everywhere in the world.
The professionals at Lazard. have chosen LCOE as the best metric to compare different technologies. The EIA report does not support your claim that obsolete technologies are cheaper than renewable energy. You have cited no authoritative sources to support your argument that Lazard is incorrect. Your argument that obsolete technology should be promoted is simply wrong.
In any case, the website Oil Price says all the best fracking sites in he USA have been tapped. Fracked wells decline in production very rapidly (just two or three years). Oil, gas and coal are finite resources that are declining. We have to build out a renewable system now before those nonrenewable sources run out.
I am surprised that someone with a background in cost accounting is so supportive of expensive, polluting, obsolete technologies when cheaper alternative sources are readily svailable.
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michael sweet at 05:34 AM on 6 October 2024Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
David-acct at 7:
As Nigelj has pointed out, other energy sources besides renewable energy are heavily subsidized. Fossil fuel subsidies in 2022 were estimated at $7 Trillion, far more than subsidies for renewable energy.
Zero nuclear power plants world wide have been built without enormous subsidies since they are not economic.
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Cedders at 20:47 PM on 5 October 2024Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
This is my attempt to contrast biogenic CO₂ and fossil CO₂ in one figure, referring back to this page. The diagram already seems too complex without all the ocean carbon cycles and weathering details. One implication: Bill Gates's recent comment about ineffectiveness of tree-planting is not far off the mark.
The animal carbon cycle estimate is based on rough caloric intake and vertebrate biomass estimates; I'd be interested in any better sources. Also notable from IPCC figure: ocean-air fluxes are up nearly 50% owing to human activity, and photosynthesis up 25%.
I'm not sure what the image constraints are here, but playing it safe: this is half-width the graphic is intended for.
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Charlie_Brown at 04:44 AM on 5 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
JockO @ 711 This is a long and convoluted thread, but your question is a very good one. Recently I had another occasion to find the answer. Upon reviewing the many comments since 2019, the concept of saturation has been discussed thoroughly and does not need to be repeated. I also got involved with that between @669 and @679. However, the specific problem with Wijngaarden & Happer has not been pinpointed previously.
W&H describe the physics of radiant energy and the effect on the spectrum of outgoing infrared radiation very well, not withstanding a complex and distracting diversion into the atmospheric temperature profile. However, they make a misleading comparison to reach a false conclusion that “at current concentrations, the forcings from all greenhouse gases are saturated.” They compare the effect from 0-400 ppm with 0-800 ppm, both of which include the very steep initial slope of the band saturation effect, to conclude that the current rate of global warming is negligible. But the initial steep slope is irrelevant to anthropogenic global warming. In W&H Figure 4, they illustrate and compare the difference in the green line (0 ppm) and the black line (400 ppm) to the difference between the green line and the red line (800 ppm). To describe global warming, they should be comparing the difference between the black line and the red line. Thus, they use an irrelevant comparison to reach an incorrect conclusion “at current concentrations, the forcings from all greenhouse gases are saturated.” Saturated should mean no change as it would to a lay person, not diminishing change, although even the semantics of the definition are debated and misleading. In any case, anthropogenic global warming is not negligible.
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nigelj at 04:38 AM on 4 October 2024Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
David-acct @7
"Nuccitelli as you noted, uses the after tax credit LCOE cost for renewables. Those tax credits get paid by the consumer in the form of higher income taxes to cover the subsidy.
Yes but it should be noted that gas and coal fired powered generation and nuclear power also get very substantial tax credits or subsidies with costs passed onto consumers. All effects their LOCE numbers as well.
David-acct 8
I think M Sweets point about the electricity system might have been that criticising renewables based on the reliance on gas peaker plants is ultimately flawed because a fully renewables system would be generation and storage without a need for gas peaker plants. So your response quoting baseload and peaker plants doesnt address the point. We are talking about two completely different operating systems. Interesting though how the current system operates so good information in that respect.
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David-acct at 11:04 AM on 3 October 2024Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
Without addressing your last paragraph directly, it should be pointed out the need to understand the fundementals of electric generation. Electric generation has three major tranches of electric generation demand. First there is baseload power demand, second there is intermediate level demand and third peaker level demand. Peaker demand is the most expensive tranche of demand because it is only needed when demand is high, Peaker has low fixed costs, but high marginal costs. That is generally okay since the peaker demand is infrequent. Baseload has high fixed costs though low marginal costs. Intermediate demand is the lowest cost of the three tranches.
Its also important to understand the fossil fuel, hydro, nuclear electric generation are all Demand constrained generation sources. Wind and Solar on the other hand are resource constrained, ie electric generation limited resources ie amount of wind.
It should be noted that Wind and solar perform very well in middle intermediate tranche of electric generation demand, while performing very poorly in the peaker demand tranche precisely due to their resource limitations.
With that background, when comparing costs across each type of electric generation source, it important to compare Baseload LCOE for gas, coal, nuclear against baseload LCOE cost for Wind and solar. Same with comparing Peaker LCOE cost for Gas, coal, against peaker LCOE cost for Wind and Solar. Its telling that Lazard's doesnt compare across each of the demand tranches.
As noted in the EIA article, its also quite telling that the industry does not use LCOE in plant generation planning because the LCOE doesnt provide any meaningful information for purposes of cost analysis.
lastly, my background is accounting and cost accounting, as such, it is much easier to spot and recognize inconsistencies in the presentations and representations than the layman.
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David-acct at 11:00 AM on 3 October 2024Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
The point of the article is "correcting myths about the cost of clean energy"
When compare costs of each type electric generation it is important to compare apples to apples.
Nuccitelli as you noted, uses the after tax credit LCOE cost for renewables. Those tax credits get paid by the consumer in the form of higher income taxes to cover the subsidy (subsidies arent free in macro economics) or paid by the consumer in the form of higher prices due to inflation which is the result of deficit spending. Thus using the after credit LCOE cost is hiding the full LCOE cost.
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hairbear at 20:35 PM on 1 October 2024Remembering our friend John Mason
I first met John just over 43 years ago on our first day at Aberystwyth University in 1981. We've kept in touch on and off over the years and was in contact with him just weeks before he died. It was a real shock to the system that someone so young should die so suddenly. I'm going to the funeral but will have to ask Johns sister if it's OK to post the details here in case anyone wants to go.
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michael sweet at 13:19 PM on 1 October 2024Correcting myths about the cost of clean energy
Sorry about all the typos, I am out of town and it is difficult to type on my tablet.
