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Charlie_Brown at 10:08 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Eclectic @ 734
The fundamental laws of radiant energy, including Beer’s Law, are entirely germane to the mechanism of global warming. They are not mental shortcuts. Einstein was in another league when thinking about the theory of relativity.The problem for CallitAsItIs is that he does not apply Beer’s Law correctly as it applies to radiant energy leaving the top of the atmosphere. He views, incorrectly, attenuation of the original source radiation from the surface, calling it “extinction.” This is the same mistake that Angström made in 1900 and too many others have followed since because it overlooks Kirchhoff’s Law. Bob Loblaw gets it right because he uses the MILIA (MODTRAN Infrared Light in the Atmosphere) model looking down from the top of the atmosphere at 70 km. Beer’s Law is very important because it defines the molecular density in the atmosphere that raises the emittance of a specific wavelength to a value of 1.0. Note that the minimum atmospheric temperature for the Tropical Atmosphere is 195 Kelvin at 17 km. The reason the bottom of the CO2 trough begins to rise at higher altitudes is the increasing temperature of the ozone layer. This demonstrates clearly that there are sufficient CO2 molecules, by Beer’s Law, to form an emitting layer at that altitude.
It is enlightening to run the model at 10 meters looking down. The spectra follows the Planck distribution because all source photons from the surface that are absorbed by CO2 are re-emitted. Kirchhoff's Law.
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Eclectic at 07:33 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
CallItAsItIs :-
Your explanation falls short of reality.
At the planetary scale, the "Beer-Lambert Law" is not germane to the situation (see Bob Loblaw's further comments, above).
Always beware of "Laws" composed centuries ago. The so-called Laws were useful as mental short-cuts, in some but not all circumstances.
As Einstein would say: Take your nose out of the lawyers' books, and look at the real universe.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:14 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
I noticed that CallItAsItIs, in comment 730, has stated that his "extinction height" is a mere 10m. If this actually prevented there from being any upwelling 15um radiation above that height, then all the graphs I supplied in comment 731 should show zero for intensity at 15um.
The astute observer will note that the graphs do no such thing.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:02 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
CallItAsItIs @ 730 once again completely ignores the known and measured fact that upwelling IR radiation at 15um, as measured at high altitudes, does not need to come from the surface.
He even has the answer in his comment (emphasis added):
Regarding the CO2 molecule at 50000m, it most certainly can absorb the 15 micron IR photons — if you bring an IR source up there.
Please buy a clue, CallItAsItIs. We do not need to "bring an IR source up there" - there already is one. It's called "the upper atmosphere", it contains CO2, and it is warmer than 0K. Climate scientists actually know about this obscure "upper atmosphere" as a source of IR radiation, they know how to calculate its effect, and they know it plays a role in atmospheric greenhouse warming.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:54 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
To show how CallItAsItIs is wrong, let's look at the upward-directed IR radiation calculated using the MODTRAN model I mentioned in comment 725. We'll stick to the default tropical atmosphere with no clouds - changing only the altitude we're looking down from.
Let's start at 10km altitude.
Lots of radiation at 15um there. Haven't reached "extinction" yet. Lets' go higher, to 20km...
A substantial reduction in 15um intensity. Are we close to CallItAsItIs's "extinction" height yet? Let's go higher, to 30km...
Oh, no! IR intensity at 15um has increased! How on earth is that possible? Where are those 15um photons coming from? If they were blocked from reaching 20km (from the surface), then how can they possibly be appearing at 30km altitude? At 30km, we're now in the stratosphere and the atmosphere is getting warmer again. Could it be possible that this warmer atmosphere is actually emitting 15um photons?
Maybe we need to go higher. Try 50 km.
Oh, crap. 15um intensity is even higher. Let's try 70km.
That's almost the same as at 50km.
So, where is this "extinction" point where CallItAsItIs claims there will be no more 15um IR radiation for CO2 to absorb? That "extinction" point only exists in CallItAsItIs's imagination.
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CallItAsItIs at 06:54 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Eclectic @728
The extinction altitude of an absorption band of a GHG is the altitude at which the upwelling radiation with the band becomes negligible according to the Beer-Lambert law and the absorption coefficient of the band. For CO2, the absorption band is 14-16 microns and the extinction altitude is about 10 meters. This means the upwelling IR radiation absorbed by CO2 at the top of the credible atmosphere is pretty miniscule. Above that, of course, it is zero.
Regarding the CO2 molecule at 50000m, it most certainly can absorb the 15 micron IR photons — if you bring an IR source up there. The reason there is no absorption at that altitude is because all 15 micron IR has already been absorbed at lower altitudes.
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Charlie_Brown at 06:44 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
First, thanks to Bob for the call out. Studying the post and the linked article in Chemical Engineering Progess should be an effective means of education.
CallitAsitis @726:
You have a misunderstanding of Kirchhoff’s Law: Absorptance = Emittance (at thermal equilibrium, i.e., temperature not changing) A CO2 molecule absorbs a photon related to a specific wavelength, increasing its internal energy level. It collides with adjacent N2 and O2 molecules and transfers energy so that the molecules are in thermal equilibrium. Since CO2 still vibrates, it also emits photons at specific wavelengths. For the molecule, the net result is essentially a pass-through. For a column of atmosphere, it is not conservation of photons but conservation of energy.You also have a misunderstanding of the absorptance/emittance lines for CO2 and water vapor. See Figure 3 in the post linked by Bob. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law is applied to each line:
Intensity = emittance x Stefan-Boltzmann constant x absolute temperature to the 4th power.Your understanding of absorptance/emittance as a function of altitude is not correct. Energy loss to space is best conceptualized by looking down from the top of the atmosphere, not by looking up from the surface. Looking down, Beer’s Law determines the altitude at which there are sufficient molecules in the optical path to bring the emittance to 1.0. For strong CO2 emittance lines, it is the cold, thin atmosphere at the bottom of the stratosphere. For weak emittance lines, it is at a lower, thicker, warmer altitude, with a minimum altitude being the Earth’s surface which emits as a blackbody. As CO2 increases, the molecular density in the cold upper atmosphere increases, the weak emittance lines strengthen, and intensity of emitted energy decreases because of the lower temperature.
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Eclectic at 06:20 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
CallItAsItIs @726 (and prior) :-
You are expressing yourself in an unclear manner ~ almost bizarrely.
e.g. What is the term "extinction altitude" that you use?
And why do you say that a CO2 molecule "can no longer absorb" (at the 15 micron wavelength) when the molecule is at say 50,000m altitude versus when the molecule is at say 50m or 500m altitude? Please explain.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:11 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
CallItAsItIs @ 726:
Frankly. you don't know what you are talking about.
- If IR radiation is present in a band that CO2 absorbs at, CO2 can absorb it.
- If CO2 is present at a temperature above 0K, it will emit IR, and do it in exactly the same bands that it absorbs at.
- Since the entire atmosphere, at any altitude, contains both CO2 and is at temperatures above 0K, there will be CO2 that is both absorbing and emitting IR radiation in the 15um band.
I know this seems like a difficult concept for you to grasp, but the atmosphere has more than just a top and a bottom. In fact, almost all of the "credible atmosphere" exists in the zone between the top and the bottom, and until you learn that you will continue to spout garbage.
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CallItAsItIs at 04:56 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Bob Loblaw@724
Above the extinction altitude of the 15 micron band, CO2 can still emit IR radiation (at any wavelength) but can no longer absorb within this band. The fact that CO2 can no longer absorb within this band means that it has zero greenhouse forcing at this altitude and above for the simple reason that there is no more 15 micron radiation that can be absorbed. The small amount of 15 micron energy that reaches orbital sensors comes from blackbody emissions from the top of the credible atmosphere. This radiation cannot, however, be absorbed since there is no more atmosphere.
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Bob Loblaw at 03:06 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
As an FYI, the IR flux vs altitude question (both upwelling and downwelling) can be explored using the online MODTRAN model. To start, I suggest reading this blog post guest-authored by frequent reader/commenter Charlie Brown.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:14 AM on 25 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
CallItAsitis @ 722 and 723:
Unfortunately, your understanding is incomplete and makes a common error by many that have tried to argue that the CO2 effect is saturated.
Your error is most easily seen in your statement "Above this altitude, there is no more upward-bound IR energy that CO2 molecules can absorb." This simply is incorrect, because your statements completely ignore the fact that CO2 also emits IR radiation. As long as CO2 is emitting IR radiation (at 15um and any other wavelength where CO2 is active), there will continue to be an upward-directed flux of IR radiation at those wavelengths. Since CO2 is present throughout the atmosphere, you will never, ever, see an altitude at which there is no upward flux of 15um radiation.
As long as you ignore the emission of IR radiation by CO2, you will fail to understand the greenhouse effect, and fool yourself with respect to "saturation". Your definition of "saturation" looks only at surface-emitted IR radiation and whether it can pass through the entire atmosphere in one go. It is your view of "saturation" that makes no sense.
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CallItAsItIs at 21:00 PM on 24 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
I have a question about the video posted in the Intermediate rebuttal. At about 2:38 into this video, Mr. Richardson states "in the upper layers of the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect isn't saturated". I need clarification on this since band saturation is not an altitude dependent quantity. As I understand it, the greenhouse effect is saturated for a particular GHG if there is an altitude at which the absorption bands for that GHG have all been depleted (from the upwelling IR radiation) through absorption at lower altitudes. Therefore, a GHG is saturated for a particular atmospheric profile of the GHG, or it isn't. It's not saturated at one altitude but not another. Such statements don't make sense.
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CallItAsItIs at 20:18 PM on 24 November 2024CO2 effect is saturated
I would like to make a few comments concerning the following paragraph in the Further details section.
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as CO2 molecules, absorb some of this IR radiation, then re-emit it in all directions - including back to Earth's surface. The CO2 molecule does not fill up with IR photons, running out of space for any more. Instead, the CO2 molecule absorbs the energy from the IR photon and the photon ceases to be. The CO2 molecule now contains more energy, but that is transient since the molecule emits its own IR photons. Not only that: it's constantly colliding with other molecules such as N2 and O2 in the surrounding air. In those collisions, that excess energy is shared with them. This energy-sharing causes the nearby air to heat up (fig. 2).
This is correct but it should also be noted that the absorption spectrum of CO2 is quite different than that for H20 vapor. In the case of CO2, strong absorption occurs but primarily in the (narrow) 15 micron band. Absorption or emission of IR by CO2 outside this band is generally considered to be small. For H20, however, we find weaker absorption but it is much more evenly spread out over the entire IR spectrum. Therefore, the CO2 greenhouse effect is determined primarily by what happens in the 15 micron band.
In the case of CO2 and the 15 micron absorption band, the N2 and O2 molecules in the surrounding air collide with energized CO2 molecules which causes the extra energy (from absorbed photons) to be converted into thermal energy, thereby raising the air temperature. Once this warming occurs, however, the upwelling 15 micron IR energy is reduced by the amount of thermal energy that was released in the collisions involving CO2 molecules. Otherwise, energy would not be conserved. Band saturation occurs if the upwelling 15 micron radiation is reduced to negligible values at some altitude below the TOA. Above this altitude, there is no more upward-bound IR energy that CO2 molecules can absorb. Essentially, the entire 15 micron band has been absorbed and additional CO2 would not cause further greenhouse warming.
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Billy at 10:33 AM on 24 November 2024A look back - SkS in 2014
so glad i found this site. It's fun digging.
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Stephan B. at 12:17 PM on 23 November 2024The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator
Kevin Cowtan's trend calculator is a very useful tool!
But all available datasets end in March 2023, which is a bit outdated. Could you please update the datasets and maintain them on a regular base (like 6 months or at least annually)?Kind regards
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:52 AM on 23 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
nigelj @10,
I am not too concerned about the order of the listing. My thinking was to:
- Start with 'what people should be interested in learning about' through the reporting of harms done.
- Next is learning about what could be done to reduce the harms.
- Then comes news reports specifically on new published science/research. Note that these news items will probably also be tagged for a second category.
- News exposing and correcting dis- and mis-information
- News about leadership actions can then be understood in the context of all the above.
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BaerbelW at 05:24 AM on 23 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
OPOF @ 8&9
Thanks much for these suggestions! I had asked Google's NotebookLM to identify topics based on several but fairly random editions of our weekly news roundup and the listing - while a lot more fine-grained - is not that much different from what you came up with. What we plan to do - as soon as we get around to finalizing the list - is to add a drop-down selection field to the Google form we already use to collect articles suitable for sharing on our social media channels. We can then in turn use that information when we generate the round-up blog post.
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nigelj at 04:56 AM on 23 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
OPOF @9, your categories look good to me. Seven primary categories is also a good number. Any more and it would overcomplicate things.
I would have put climate science and research first on the list because everything starts with the science, but perhaps you were putting impacts first because this is such an important issue.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:44 AM on 23 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
I have some additional adjustments of my suggested list of Primary Category headings for the Weekly News Roundup. Each primary heading should refer to the primary interest which is learning about everything related to Rapid Human-Caused Climate Change.
Climate Change Impacts: Environment-Social-Economic (interrelated)
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: Intimately correlated. More mitigation requires less adaptation.
Climate Change Science/Research:
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Change: Disinformation and Misinformation
Climate Change Policy and Politics:
International Climate Change related Conferences and Agreements:
• UN Climate Change COPs
• UN Biodiversity COPsMiscellaneous (Other):
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:46 AM on 22 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
I would change one of the Primary Categories I listed @7. I had simply copied the category AI created for Weekly News Roundup #45. But I think the following would be better.
Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science: Disinformation and Misinformation
Also, when appropriate, a News Items should be listed in more than one Primary Category. This wouold particularly apply to news items reporting on climate sciemce and research that also would fit under another category.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:51 PM on 21 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
A Climate Science Communications specialist could likely develop a better categorization. However, I compiled the following ‘primary categories’ based on the Weekly News categories created by AI in Weeks #43, 44, and 45 and the set of categories suggested by nigelj @5.
Climate Change Impacts: Environmental-Social-Economic (interrelated)
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: Intimately correlated. More mitigation requires less adaptation.
Climate Science and Research:
Public Misconceptions and Climate Science: Disinformation and Misinformation
Climate Policy and Politics:
International Climate Conferences and Agreements:
• UN Climate Change COPs
• UN Biodiversity COPsMiscellaneous (Other):
The AI generated listings for Weeks #43, 44 and 45 also provide a large number of potential ‘secondary categories’.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:32 AM on 21 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
I am reviewing the categories created by AI for Weekly News #43, #44, and #45. I hope to post a result soon.
However, I have noticed a problem that using AI did not solve. In Week #44 the first category was for COP16. This Week's list is dominated by COP29. The problem is the failure to fully describe the COPs. They are:
- UN Biodiversity COP16
- UN Climate Change COP29
That full understanding is clear when reading each article. But the category title should fully describe the content rather than require a review of the content to determine what is in the category.
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nigelj at 15:54 PM on 19 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
Possible categories are the science of climate change, climate projections, climate mitigation and adaptation, politics of climate change, the denialist campaign, and miscellaneous issues.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:09 AM on 19 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
I agree with wilddouglascounty’s recommendation. Climate science communication specialists should be able establish a helpful set of categories for the Weekly News Items.
Part of my work as a Civil/Structural technical specialist in a major engineering organization was collecting reference information on a diversity of relevant topics. My approach was to use a high-level set of identifiable categories with General (or Other) for everything that did not fit in an established category. As the information accumulated I would create new basic categories for suitable groups of information from the General category. And when appropriate I would create sub-categories in the basic categories.
Though they would not be relevant for the Weekly News Items, here are some categories I had that were related directly to climate change (they indicate why I pursued learning about rapid human caused climate change):
- Loads and Forces: Wind; Rain; Snow; Ice; Range of Temperature Change
- Surface Runoff: Rain Intensity and Duration; Snow Melt Rates
- Foundations: Slope Stability; Permafrost (It was expected to remain frozen for centuries. So we tried to build on it in ways that would not cause it to melt.)
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BaerbelW at 03:36 AM on 19 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
Cleanair27 @2
Thanks for the heads-up regarding the broken link. It's now fixed (and goes to the same published paper linked to in my earlier comment about this topic.
As an aside (and most likely stating the obvious): if you are especially interested in peer-reviewed literature, our weekly compilation has "tons" of just that!
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Cleanair27 at 02:58 AM on 19 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
I am willing to accept that there may be a positive efficiency difference between using a stochastic parrot and a human, or humans, to hunt for relevant articles that readers of this site will find informative or even useful. I'm not entirely convinced, and the link in this Story of the Week post is broken regarding AI vs. human writing and illustrating work. And it sounds a little too much like the John Henry fable updated.
There is also the ethical question that comes with using the products of large corporations whose investors who don't give a fig about the climate impact of the energy use from running LLMs. What they want is to continue to capture huge swaths of surplus value from the labor of others (as the Marxists would call it) and use their profits to extract excess rent (as economists would call it) in the form of public policy that favors their interests.
I don't know what the best solution is for the humans working very hard to maintain this site. For my own purposes, the chronological listing of reports and articles is more than satisfactory. It is easy to sift through to find what interests me, which tend to be the peer-reviewed research. So please accept my thanks for all that you do to inform us. I accept that it is best to leave up to you how to improve the product and ease your burdens.
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wilddouglascounty at 00:07 AM on 19 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
You might check the May 2021 article out from PLoS One on Article level classification of scieentific publications. What came to mine when I skimmed this article is that for your purposes it might be worth getting a bibliometric analyst involved in your stable of volunteers and she/he might be able to take your latest batch of articles you want to post on the site and whip them into taxonomic shape in no time, categorizing them into clear categories without any AI involved. I suspect that there are some out there who would understand the carbon footprint issues that AI represents and could figure out a way to do it sans the energy intensive approach.
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prove we are smart at 07:44 AM on 14 November 202420 fact briefs published in collaboration with Gigafact!
What the heck, thought I'd do the quiz even knowing I would know that stuff now. Well, I got number 15 wrong and am so glad I did!
I was eventually led back to here- skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=1&t=162&&a=297 you can learn so much from the informed comments. By the time I read the first 25 comments of that decade old post I had my information- In fact a link from number 25 commenter led me here- www.amazon.com/The-Alchemy-Air-Scientific-Discovery/dp/0307351793 ( looks like a good read)
Surprising facts and scientific knowledge, gotta luv Skeptical Science.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:27 AM on 14 November 2024Sabin 33 #2 - Are toxic heavy metals from solar panels posing a threat to human health?
LazyTeenager:
How carefully did you read the post?
Searching this page for "hail" finds four hits: three of them in your comment. The fourth hit is in the body of the article, where it says "Moreover, they are encased in tempered glass that not only withstands high temperatures, but is also strong enough to pass hail tests..."
How did you translate that to "hail proof"? Are the web sites you are looking at trying to claim that the solar panel industry is advertising that solar panels are indestructible?
A simple Google search for "solar panel hail damage resistance" finds a series of web pages that include statements such as "...can withstand most hail storms...". In addition, numerous web pages talk about how installation and solar panel type can improve hail resistance.
...and I even see web pages that mention various testing standards, for example:
"According to IEC 61215 standard, a PV module should resist at the minimum to the impact of a hailstone of 25 mm launched at 80 km/h, while the Swiss VKF standard demands a minimum of 30 mm, practically making it 40 mm or more."
...and one page that lists "8 ways to protect your solar panels from hail storm damage". Number 1 is:
Buy Panels Rated UL 61730, UIC 61730, or IP68
The first step to protecting solar panels in a hailstorm is to buy resilient panels. The materials that go into a solar panel’s manufacture determine its durability.
While most panels produced today are relatively tough, panels rated UL 61730 go through testing to withstand strikes of hail between one and three inches, traveling at speeds up to 88.3 miles per hour (142 kph). Purchasing panels that meet this certification level can protect your solar array in almost any storm.
So, the OP that states "strong enough to pass hail tests" clearly does not mean that solar panels are indestructible. If a particular installation has been done with poorer quality materials or methods, or a hail storm that is worse than expected and tested for, then damage will happen.
Choosing a less expensive panel or installation means taking more risk. Pictures of damage solar panels indicates that people took more risk that they realized, or didn't properly assess the risk - or simply lost the bet on whether the risk would happen to them.
So, the answers to your questions are readily available. The OP does not claim that solar panels will never get damaged, so photos of hail-damaged solar panels is not a contradiction.
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LazyTeenager at 21:45 PM on 13 November 2024Sabin 33 #2 - Are toxic heavy metals from solar panels posing a threat to human health?
I've notice the right wing propaganda machine is quite keen on aerial photos of hail damaged solar farms. This contradicts the claim above that solar panels are hail proof. Is there any reliable surveys of installed panel robustness? Repairability of hail damaged panels?
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Paul Pukite at 11:01 AM on 13 November 2024Models are unreliable
Syme_Minitrue says: "and you can train the model to fit historical data "
This is a link to a unified model that gets the physics right. The data is fit according to a forcing with parameters that correspond to measured values, and cross-validated against test regions with a unique fingerprint
https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
The residual can then be evaluated for a climate change trend. Ideally, this is the way that climate change needs to be estimated. All conflating factors should be individually discriminated before the measure of interest can be isolated. That's the way it's done in other quantitative disciplines.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:48 AM on 13 November 2024Models are unreliable
A further follow-up to Syme_Minitrue's post @ 1332, where (s)he finishes with the statement:
A climate model probably contains hundreds of model parameters. Can you adjust them so that you get a good fit with historical data, and good predictive capability at a significantly lower, or even completely excluded CO2-dependency?
Let's say we wanted to run a climate model over the historical period (the last century) in a manner that "excluded CO2-dependency". How on earth (pun intended) would we do that, with a physically-based climate model?
- We could decide to remove the part of the model that says CO2 absorbs (and emits) IR radiation.
- Unfortunately, that would make our model run far too cold for the entire period, since the 19th century CO2 level of 280-300ppm is a significant source of heating that helps keep us in a stable climate of roughly 15C (as opposed to -18C that we'd expect with no atmosphere)
- This would defy the physics of IR absorption by CO2 that is easily demonstrated in a laboratory.
- We could arbitrarily decide that CO2 remain at 300ppm.
- This would be a useful experiment, and is probably what was done for the graph I included in comment 1334...
- ...but this defies the actual physical measurements of rising CO2, so it can hardly be argued that this model experiment can explain actual temperature observations.
- We could run the model so that the first 300ppm of CO2 absorbs IR radiation, but the CO2 content above 300ppm does not.
- This makes no physical sense, since all CO2 molecules act the same. We can't use "special pleading" for some.
- And once we remove the effects of rising CO2, how would we change other model calculations to compensate for the lack of CO2 warming? i.e., what would "fit" the model to the observed increase in temperatures?
- We could arbitrarily increase solar input...
- ...but this defies our physical measurements of solar irradiance.
- We could arbitrarily change cloud cover
- but we have no physical measurements that would support this.
- We could arbitrarily change surface albedo, vegetation, etc...
- but we run into the same problem: we have physical measurements of the properties of these factors, and it's hard to justify using values that are different from the known measured values.
In comment 1334, I linked to a review I did of a paper that claimed to be able to fit recent temperature trends with a model that showed a small CO2 effect. I said it was badly flawed.
- The paper in question did pretty much what Syme_Minitrue expressed concern about: doing a statistical fit to a large number of parameters, many of which defied any plausible physical meaning.
- As long as your parameters can perform all sorts of non-physical gymnastics in an effort to fit the data, you can easily come up with some rather odd results.
- When your model parameters are limited to physically-measurable values, "fitting" gets a lot harder.
Physically-based models in climate science generally get "fit" by trying to get the physics right.
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nigelj at 06:29 AM on 13 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
The AI (artificial intelligence) does appear to use a lot of electricity. It raises the issue of where we should cut our electricity use to help mitigate the climate problem. One can talk about focusing on meeting needs rather than wants. We probably need some basics to survive in cities like a fridge and electric stove and a radio and home heating. We dont really need a television and vaccum cleaners and cars and fancy audio systems, and travelling to other countries or even cars in most cases. We probably mostly dont need AI unless it helps the healthcare sector. We dont even really need computers. We sure don't need bitcoin.
But wants are also very important. Its what makes life nice. So we have to decide on what wants are legitimate. Is a television legitimate? If it is, what sort of television is legitimate? How much long distance motorised travel is appropriate? Its all a nightmare really.
And one persons wants are another persons needs. Even deciding on what is a need and a want is not as easy as it seems. A computer is a perfect example. Its not absoluely essential but its getting close to being essential?
I'm not a huge energy user myself. Im just highlighting some of the challenges in figuring out wants versus needs, and what constitutes a workable low energy use society, and getting people to voluntarily adopt this.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:49 AM on 13 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
Comparing the Google Gemini and OpenAI ChatGPT presentations I prefer the summary statements provided by ChatGPT.
However, neither of the presentations are particualrly useful to me. They would be useful if they presented the linked list of articles in each category like the SkS New Research for Week ... (most recent week link).
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Evan at 02:34 AM on 13 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
Cleanair27 and BaerbelW
Even if I knew that the AI used here by SkS increased emissions, I would be for it. It is easy to say that we should use crowd sourcing, but such activities must be managed, by humans, and the humans maintaining SkS are overworked. SkS provides an extremely valuable educational resource, and I am all for anything that improves the consistency, accuracy, etc. of the SkS product while lowering the work load on the SkS human.
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MA Rodger at 21:24 PM on 12 November 2024Models are unreliable
Syme_Minitrue @1332,
You suggest CO2 can be extracted from climate models and it would be "then hard to use that model to claim that CO2 is what drives global warming." You then add "I have done a little bit of searching but not found any such falsification attempt."
I would suggest it is your searches that are failing as there are plenty "such falsification attempt(s)." They do not have the resources behind them to run detailed models like the IPCC does today. But back in the day the IPCC didn't have such detailed models yet still found CO2 driving climate change.
These 'attempts' do find support in some quarters and if they had the slightest amount of merit they would drive additional research. But they have all, so far, proved delusional, usually the work of a know bunch of climate deniers with nothing better to do.
Such clownish work, or perhaps clownish presentation of work, has been getting grander but less frequent through the years. An exemplar is perhaps Soon et al (2023) 'The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data'. Within the long list of authors I note Harde, Humlum, Legates, Moore and Scafetta who are all well known for these sorts of papers usually published in journals of little repute. If such work was onto something, it would be followed up by further work. That is how science is supposed to work.
Instead all we see is the same old stuff recycled again and again by the same old autors and being shown to be wrong again and again.
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BaerbelW at 06:45 AM on 12 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
Cleanair27 @ 1
Thanks for your comment! It's definitely a good thing to keep energy consumption of AI in mind, but somewhat counterintuitively this study from earlier this year found that utilizing AI for a task like the one we used it for - namely to create the categorized summary of the many shared articles - is apparently a lot more energy efficient than doing it manually:
"The carbon emissions of writing and illustrating are lower for AI than for humans" -
Bob Loblaw at 06:26 AM on 12 November 2024Models are unreliable
Syme_Minitrue @ 1332:
Your comment contains several misunderstandings of how models are developed and tested, and how science is evaluated.
To begin, you start with the phrase "If a hypothesis should be considered proven..." Hypotheses are not proven: they are supported by empirical evidence (or not). And there is lots and lots of empirical evidence that climate models get a lot of things right. They are not "claimed to be true" (another phrase you use), but the role of CO2 in recent warming is strongly supported.
In your second and third paragraphs, you present a number of "alternative explanations" that you think need to be considered. Rest assured that none of what you present is unknown to climate science, and these possible explanations have been considered. Some of them do have effects, but none provide an explanation for recent warming.
In your discussion of "parameters", you largely confuse the characteristics of purely-statistical models with the characteristics of models that are largely based on physics. For example, if you were to consider Newton's law of gravity, and wanted to use it to model the gravitational pull between two planets, you might think there are four "parameters" involved: the mass of planet A, the mass of planet B, the distance between them, and the gravitational constant. None of the four are "tunable parameters", though. Each of the four is a physical property that can be determined independently. You can't change the mass of planet A that you used in calculating the gravitational pull with planet B, and say that planet A has a different mass when calculating the attraction with planet C.
Likewise, many of the values used in climate model equations have independently-determined values (with error bars). Solar irradiance does not change on Tuesday because it fits better - it only changes when our measurements of solar irradiance show it is changing, or (for historical data prior to direct measurement) some other factor has changed that we know is a reliable proxy indicator for past solar irradiance. We can't make forests appear and disappear on an annual basis to "fit" the model. We can't say vegetation transpires this week and not next to "fit" the model (although we can say transpiration varies according to known factors that affect it, such as temperature, leaf area, soil moisture, etc.)
And climate models, like real climate, involve a lot of interconnected variables. "Tuning" in a non-physical way to fit one output variable (e..g. temperature) will also affect other output variables (e.g. precipitation). You can't just stick in whatever number you want - you need to stick with known values (which will have uncertainty) and work within the known measured ranges.
Climate models do have "parameterizations" that represent statistical fits for some processes - especially at the sub-grid scale. But again, these need to be physically reasonable. And they are often based on and compared to more physically-based models that include finer detail (and have evidence to support them). This is often done for computational efficiency - full climate models contain too much to be able to include "my back yard" level of detail.
You conclude with the question "Can you adjust them so that you get a good fit with historical data, and good predictive capability at a significantly lower, or even completely excluded CO2-dependency?" The answer to that is a resounding No. In the 2021 IPCC summary for policy makers, figure SPM1 includes a graph of models run with and without the anthropogenic factors. Here is that figure:
Note that "skeptics" publish papers from time to time purporting to explain recent temperature trends using factors other than CO2. These papers usually suffer from major weaknesses. I reviewed one of them a couple of years ago. It was a badly flawed paper. In general, the climate science community agrees that recent warming trends cannot be explained without including the role of CO2.
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Charlie_Brown at 06:23 AM on 12 November 2024Models are unreliable
Syme_Minitrue @ 1332
That is an incorrect way to prove the null hypothesis or to demonstrate falsification. Climate models are not simple empirical models. They contain a mix of fundamental principles, including the laws of physics, as well as tunable parameters for uncertain factors. One cannot simply remove radiant energy, which follows the physics of CO2, and then tune the model to an unconstrained set of empirical variables, then say that if it can be made to fit, conclude that the laws of physics are invalid. -
Syme_Minitrue at 01:28 AM on 12 November 2024Models are unreliable
If a hypothesis should be considered proven it must stand up against falsification attempts. If you take a climate model as an example, and remove all CO2 dependency, and adjust all other model parameters, and you can train the model to fit historical data AND it still makes a decent prediction of future climate, it is then hard to use that model to claim that CO2 is what drives global warming. I have done a little bit of searching but not found any such falsification attempt.
For example, since early human civilisation about 1/3 of the world's forests have been cut down, farmland has been drained. This inevitably makes the soil drier and you get less daytime cumulus clouds. These clouds reflect sunlight, but disappear at night allowing long-wave CO2-radiation to escape. Most of this deforestation & drainage has happened in sync with CO2-emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution. If you can adjust/train the climate model by tuning all other model parameters (I'm sure there are hundreds in a climate model) relating to deforestation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, cloud formation, land use, etc etc etc, and the model 1) follows the observed climate and 2) makes decent predictions into the future (relative to the training window) then the hypothesis that CO2 is what drives climate change can't be claimed to be true, based on that model.
I have done a bit of model fitting on systems way less complex than the global climate. If the model contains more than, say 5 (five) model parameters that need to be tuned to make the model fit historical data, you really start chasing your own tail. The problem becomes "ill conditioned" and several combinations of model parameters can give a good fit and make decent predictions. In such a situation, you can choose to eliminate some parameters or variables, or impose some known or suspected correlation or causality between them, to simplify the model. A model should be kept as simple as possible.A climate model probably contains hundreds of model parameters. Can you adjust them so that you get a good fit with historical data, and good predictive capability at a significantly lower, or even completely excluded CO2-dependency?
Moderator Response:[PS] Please have a decent read of the IPCC summaries of climate modelling, especially the earlier reports 3 and 4. Climate models are physics-based models, not statistical models. You cant "fit" parameters like you do in a statistical model. Parameterization of variables is extremely limited and not tuned to say global temperature. The old FAQ on climate models at https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/ is very useful in this. Models do include landuse change that you mention.
As to falsification, climate science makes a very large number of robust predictions like ocean heat content, changes to outgoing and incoming IR, response to volcanic eruptions etc. Observations that differ from these would indeed falsify the models (though not necessarily the science).You can still download a cut down version of GISS model that will run on a desktop. https://edgcm.columbia.edu/ Try it yourself. Good luck getting it simulate climate with CO2 depencency set to zero.
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Cleanair27 at 00:18 AM on 12 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
Hello,
I strongly object to your using AI to prepare your weekly roundup of articles. I am sure you know how climate damaging AI is, so how do you justify this? I'm thinking of stopping my reading of your site, which I value very much, because of this change in your operations. How about considering human crowd sourceing your article roundup?
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Bob Loblaw at 06:37 AM on 11 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
Jess Scarlett @ 6:
You're going to have to put together a much stronger argument than that if you want to convince anyone that there isn't a strong expert consensus on human-caused global warming.
For starters, is your lead question ("Have you looked into all the climate scientists gagged...") a rhetorical gambit, or are you actually asking a serious question? Are you trying to imply that the studies that have looked at the scientific literature missed a few "gagged scientists", or many, or all? Are you trying to imply that this "gagging" has been so thorough that none of their opinions have every made it into print? Or that the few that have made it into print would be a much greater number "but gagging"?
The OP here links to the full SkS rebuttal on the topic. Here is the link to the basic tab of that rebuttal, but note that there are also advanced and intermediate tabs to read. The basic rebuttal links to the various papers that have been done on the subject, and those papers give details on just what sort of searches they did to obtain the list of papers that were evaluated. Feel free to look them over and come back with an argument as to why those searches will have missed the opinions of the "gagged scientists" you seem to think exist in large numbers.
...but before you start trying to make an argument that the review system won't let opposing opinions get published, I suggest that you read this SkS article on "pal review" that shows just where bad reviewing practices exist in the climate science literature. (Hint: it's the "gagged scientists" that have historically abused the peer review system.)
But let's entertain your argument that there are a whole bunch of 'gagged scientists" that can't get published, or have chosen to remain silent out of fear. You said "...all the climate scientists gagged..." That seems to imply a large number. I'll begin with a recollection of discussing climate science with someone at a conference about 30 years ago. He made the claim that lots of scientists had reversed their opinion from global cooling in the 1970s to warming in the 1990s. (This is debunked on this post at SkS.)
- I challenged him by saying "name one".
- He prattled on about there being lots.
- Again, I said "name one".
- He kept prattling on.
- I repeated "name one".
- I held my hand up about head high and started dropped it down to chest height, waist height, and below, saying "this is your credibility dropping".
- He still didn't give a name. He never did.
So that is my challenge to you: you claim that there are scientists at CSIRO and NASA that have been gagged because they disagree with the scientific consensus. Name One. And provide some sort of link to a reliable source of information supporting that position.
Second: in the advanced tab of the full rebuttal, under "The Self-Ratings", the Original Cook et al study obtained ratings of over 2100 papers from 1200 scientists, and 97.2% of those ratings agreed with the consensus. In the following paragraph, it states that the authors' review of over 4000 abstracts indicated a 97.1% agreement with the consensus.
- My second challenge is for you to do some elementary arithmetic (I won't call it math), and tell me how many papers do you think those "gagged scientists" failed to publish, and how would the 97% number have changed if they had succeeded in publishing those papers.
- I'll give you a hint. You'd have to find nearly 2100 papers or 4000 abstracts to get it to drop to a 50% consensus.
- Good luck finding that many papers.
- ...and before you try to link to PopTech's list of papers, please read "Meet the Denominator".
Please provide us with backup of your claim.
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nigelj at 05:17 AM on 11 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
Jess Scarlett @6, you appear to be implying scientists at CSIRO ,an Australian government funded climate change advice agency, were gagged and bullied and fired for being sceptical of anthropogenic climate change and so those left were the ones believing in anthropogenic climate change. This does not appear to be correct. It appears that the issues at CSIRO was essentially scientists were gagged, bullied and fired if they published studies or spoke out publicly in a way not consistent with the governments direction on climate science and mitigation policy, which of course varied form government to government. It appears CSIROS mangement were afraid of offending the governmnet of the day.
The scientists actually gagged, bullied or fired seemed to be scientists who spoke out publicly about climate dangers and weak emissions reduction targets and who published studies critical of weak climate mitigation schemes. For example a study by Dr Splash, a scientist, critical of emissions trading schemes and recommending a carbon tax. This is essentially the complete opposite of your claim. The following link gives a good account of the issues:
www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-05-02/csiro-missing-in-action-on-climate-advice/8479568
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Eclectic at 05:15 AM on 11 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
Jess Scarlett @6 :
Jess, the consensus being talked about is the scientific consensus ~ IOW the evidence based consensus, which is expressed in published scientific papers. There are some (rare) scientists who disagree with the evidence, but they have failed to present any counter-evidence. (Can you still call them scientists when they are being unscientific?)
Reputable scientific journals are actually keen to publish new research ~ if it is controversial and ground-breaking . . . but it must be based on scientific evidence, not on loudmouth political opinions.
The politics of what to do about AGW is another question entirely.
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Jess Scarlett at 00:22 AM on 11 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
Have you looked into all the climate scientists gagged after being bullied and fired for not having those scientific results in the industry the longest. Look up CSIRO bullied out of jobs or defunded. What about same as NASA scientists. So yeah nearly all scientists left to speak agree. After 2015.
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gaeshitsuki at 23:30 PM on 10 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
And as always, people believe those who offer the best entertainment, the best phrasemongers, the simplifiers. As a result, the majority of people always choose the quick bite, instead of the paths that would lead to sustainable solutions.
The unpleasant truths fall by the wayside.
The people deserve their leaders, whom they themselves elected.
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Dale H at 22:45 PM on 10 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
Dale H
Why don't we call it what it really is?
Global warming!
I think it would help in the consumer understanding and uptake.
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prove we are smart at 07:33 AM on 10 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
Thanks Evan for providing that link to understand in a simple way some climate truths.
The ability and resolve to learn the why of it all is a losing battle. The internet can give us Skeptical Science but not teach us equity.
Seems to me, critical thinking has caved in to populist media messaging. The swing to the right in many western countries has reached a new peak in the consumer driven on steroids the USA.
"The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe; for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them."
Perhaps I will think this again- It seems to be a law of human nature that some people only notice things when they suffer personally.
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Evan at 00:20 AM on 10 November 2024Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
Although not a consensus statement as such, the booklet titled "Climate Change: Evidence and Causes" published jointly by the US National Academy of Sciences and the UK Royal Society is a very readable, useful resource to recommend to people who want to read something about global warming from a reputable source. This booklet serves as an implicit consensus statement by these two organizations. I highly recommend this.
