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Comments 5001 to 5050:

  1. It's albedo

    @76

    [snip]

    You probably suffer from attention deficit syndrome. Thank god I am mortally bored after repeating the simplest facts of the most simplest climate knowledge more than 3 times - and BL failing to understand them.
    I am not going to go around in circles with you a hundred times and then recommend psychopathological treatment to you after 3 months.
    This can be done much faster. If your overview is limited to the size of a beer mat - it's not my fault.

    BL:     ...Increased evaporation must lead to increased precipitation, but this does not necessarily mean that there will be more cloud...  

    BL:     ...basic meteorology, where air must cool to form clouds and precipitation,...

    So what now ???       the water vapor turns into a cloud ---------— before it rains -------------— or not ???

    [snip]   Hopefully you are not here to pluck daisies and ask yourself: Aristotle loves me - Aristotle doesn't love me - Aristotle loves me ................? #?

    You knot your brain here within 3 of your own remarkably meaningless sentences - contradicting to yourselve and not at all wondering that you have tomatoes on your eyes?

    I have posted the graphs(69) for the global radiation balances                 all sky/clear sky    so that you(and others) hopefully understand that clouds basically have a strong cooling influence on earth temperatures. [snip] You are hopelessly overwhelmed with the most simplest knowledge about CRE and watercycle. You doubt that I can produce clouds ? - ridiculous - I can produce clouds and I do it daily - my tomatoes can produce clouds - the forest next to my door even more - only BL can NOT make clouds - because he's probably    "too intelligent",    to piss a hole into the snow. You'll end up as a pangburn here if you don't take a quick break to get your neurons in order.

    It's bad enough to run into climate deniers around every corner of this world - but folks like you who circulate                                      Babylonian Language Confusion(BLC ??#??) are a whole lot worse.

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Ad hom and inflammatory comments snipped. Please read the comments policy for this website before continuing to engage here. 

  2. Show me the money: a new slogan for the climate movement

    Actually, in a country with sovereign currency and a central bank working for the public interest instead of private finance, taxes are not needed to finance public expenditures. The state can issue the money needed for that spending. The only restrictions to that issuing is inflation (related to the productive capacity of the economy (how far is total spending, public and private, from full productive capcity) and the external balance (for imports, issuing your own money doesn´t work, except for a few privileged countries such as the US); 

    Taxes are needed not for financing public expenditure, but to redirect resources from one use to another, in the case of climate change, especially from private goods to public goods.

    For more on this issue, see:   How to Pay for the Green New Deal  http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_931.pdf

  3. There's no tropospheric hot spot

    Message for the mods. Several figures, apparently hosted at tinypic, seem to be no longer available.

  4. It's albedo

    coolmaster:

    You continue to make nonsensical arguments.

    I quoted your words on ocean precipitation exactly, and I explained the context of how ocean evaporation and preciaption relate to evaporation and precipation over land. The two are not at all independent.

    In your most recent post, you state "...and that rain will fall into the sea." Again, you are wrong. Much of the evaporation from oceans does not fall back into the sea. How do I know this? Huge amounts of water flow through rivers and lakes from land to the oceans. The only way to get this back to the land is to evaporate it from the oceans, carry it over land, and let it fall as precipitation over land. You know this. Don't ignore it.

    You ask if I am talkiing about desertification when I state "...that things other than evaporation limit both water vapour and cloud cover." No, I am not talking about desertification. I am talking about basic meteorology, where air must cool to form clouds and precipitation, and precipitation falls out of the atmosphere so that wate vapour does not increase continuously as more water evaporates. Atmospheric temperature plays a critical role in when, where, and how much cloud forms, and when, where and how much precipitation falls. Air must rise to cool, and the rise requires one of free convection, orographic forcing, or frontal systems.

    Pumping more water vapour into the atmosphere will not act as a forcing for warming or cooling - it can only act as a feedback. Some other factor must cause warming for the atmosphere to hold more water vapour. Increased evaporation must lead to increased precipitation, but this does not necessarily mean that there will be more cloud. as far as radaitive effects are concerned, the latest IPCC report says that a negative cloud feedback is very unlikely. Under a warming climate, evaporation and atmospheric water vapour will both increase, and a negative feedback is what you are trying to claim with your cloud effects. There is very little scientific evidence to support this.

    Your "estimate" of additional evaporation leading to "improving cloud cover" makes no sense. Clouds over land get much of their water from ocean evaporation, and much land evaporation gets transported away to make clouds in other locations - where basic meteorology explains the various processes that lead to cloud formation and precipitation.

    The link I provided (to water vapour as a greenhouse gas) explains how water vapour is limited by temperature.

    I am not confusing radiation effects of cloud and water vapour. I am saying that your claims of changing cloud cover through increasing evaporation are both simplistic and wrong.

    Your whole argument rises or falls on your claim that increased evaporation will lead to the cloud cover changes you claim. You have provided no scientific justification for this claim, or references to suitable scientific publications to support it.

    (Yes, I looked at the figures at the link you provided. The are predominately seasonal, and you provide no explanation as to what they are supposed to show. Seasonal variations are not a good indicator of of how the climate system responds to long-term changes. Too many confounding variables that you would need to sort out.)

  5. It's albedo

    Bob Loblaw@74

    You seem to be trying to turn the word around in my mouth - you will not succeed. I have never said that precipitation over the seas is irrelevant to the climate - but I claimed that precipitation and evaporation over the sea cannot be held back or manipulated by humans - and that rain will fall into the sea.
    You can stand on the beach or on a boat with a big bucket - but is that handy to hold back 1335 km³ per year - NO.                                        Can you give me a practical, affordable way of enhancing evaporation over the sea ? - NO.                                                                                Do you need proof of this? - I hope NOT.

    Just note that I want to increase evaporation by 0,7W/m² over LAND AREAS with 9L/m² and year. This improves also the energy transport from the land surface to the atmosphere by 6.13KWh/m² in spring and summer when this water will be used as additional artifical irrigation.


    I've posted some graphics(69) that you think will be a useful extension. There the energy transport from the oceans to the land areas is given as 19W / m² - you don't have to give me any tutoring in this regard.

    BL:   ... that things other than evaporation limit both water vapour and cloud cover.


    Are you talking about desertification? 10% of global surface is desert spreading rapidly. Here I've put together some other graphics and links that can give you an idea of what I'm referring to:

    https://climate-protecion-hardware.webnode.com/_files/200000017-9b9cc9b9cd/cloud_graphics.pdf?ph=02adf5ae1c

    ...From the totality of these findings I estimate the cooling radiative forcing resulting from additional evaporation through an improving cloud cover to approx. -0.2W / m² per year over land areas.(or even more due to multiplication effects)
    It is suitable to compensate the current, global, annual radiative forcing of approx. + 0.04-0.05W / m² with ease.

    In theory, this would stop the rise in earth temperature!

    The use of additional "artificial irrigation" and retention measures with an annual, global total volume of 1335km³ = (3.7mm SLR) can reduce the predominantly CO²-related global warming with ~ -0.15W / m² "water cooling" by approx.  -0,07 ° C / year.

    If you take this additional volume from flowing waters and / or bank filtrate instead of using groundwater

    - This also stops the rise in sea levels!

    The global measures and changes in water management required for are
    thus always an excellent regional protection against periods of drought, but at the same time also against heavy rain and floods.

    Assuming that this water volume is completely withdrawn from global runoff and supplied to transpiration through plants or groundwater reservoirs and soil moisture, there is a potential for additional CO² absorption of ~ 4.9 - 9.8Gt / year (C3-C4 plants // 1-2Kg carbon / m³).
    Overall, it can be assumed that biodiversity will benefit from additional amounts of water over land and counteract the extinction of species.

    BL:  A 1% increase in evapoartion will not lead to a 1% increase in clouds over land. (Feel free to provide an actual scientific reference for your claim, should you have one.)

    Aristotle and I (and many others) believe in: What goes up - gets colder - and becomes a cloud - and must come down rapidly as water(~8,5days). A huge part of this additional evaporation will precipitate over a land area again (multiplication effect). 

    The link you sent is of little help. Here, too, the radiation-relevant net effect of clouds and water vapor (CRE = -19W / m²)), which is crucial for my strategy, is missing. You still seem to confuse CRE with the atmospheric feedback of the clouds, which consists in the fact that with increasing temperature less cloud cover, changed lapse rate and optical depth are determined (+ 0.42Wm-2 ° C-1). 

    May be it`s a good idea to work out this topic here together.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Link activated.

    The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.

  6. louislorenziprince at 02:05 AM on 8 September 2021
    Why I am “angry”

    As long as humans hold onto Stone Age beliefs about an invisible man who lives in the sky who knows all and monitors our thoughts - we won't do anything constructive to prevent our demise. Fantasies and delusional thinking are a hallmark of all religions because the main purpose of religion is the desire for Earthly control of people. 

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Comments on religion snipped.

    General Warning

    Thank you for taking the time to share with us.  Skeptical Science is a user forum wherein the science of climate change can be discussed from the standpoint of the science itself.  Ideology and politics get checked at the keyboard.

    Please take the time to review the Comments Policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

    In particular, note the section that states:

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  7. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    Coolmaster:

    I have responded to your claim of an "alternate climate protection strategy" on the thread where you made the claim.

    https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=141&p=2#137680

    Spolier alert: you are wrong.

  8. It's albedo

    Coolmaster:

    You seem to be trying to claim that there is some sort of method of controlling climate by increasing evaporation over land, leading to increased cloud cover?

    In #72, you state "The amount of precipitation over the sea is therefor also irrelevant because it cannot be held back there."

    You are wrong. The amounts of precipitation and evaporation over oceans is highly relevant. to global climate. Globally, oceans evaporate much more water than falls back iinto them as precipitation. The difference is the extra precipitation over land - where precipitation greatly exceeds evaporation for global totals.

    The fact that lots and lots of evaporation from oceans is incapable of forcing ever higher and higher atmospheric water vapour and clouds should tell you that things other than evaporation limit both water vapour and cloud cover.

    A 1% increase in evapoartion will not lead to a 1% increase in clouds over land. (Feel free to provide an actual scientific reference for your claim, should you have one.)

    You may wish to read https://skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm

     

  9. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    citizenschallenge@7

    ...your's was the one disappointing comment...

    life is hard - and then you die

    If you are a simple straightforward guy, looking for simple answers - just read my comments of the last week. 

    You will find an alternative climate protection strategy.

    A concept to stop sea level rise - and global warming.

    It is so simple and straightforward that mostly nobody understands. ????

     

  10. 2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36

    Thanks for the feedback, Jonas!

  11. citizenschallenge at 01:07 AM on 7 September 2021
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    The "????" was supposed to be a laughing smilie.   ;-)

  12. citizenschallenge at 01:06 AM on 7 September 2021
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    MA Roger (Eclectic & coolmaster - it was an excellent link you shared)  I'm assuming you folks have no objection to being quoted and this thread cited?  

    "back-of-fag-packet calculation" ???? so that's even smaller than a back of cocktail napkin calculation.

  13. citizenschallenge at 00:28 AM on 7 September 2021
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    Thank you for those responses

    @2 Eclectic at 15:03 PM on 5 September, 2021

    Response: I don't think he has, but he did leave a comment at one of my old blog posts.  He seemed rather proud of himself and needed to share with anyone who gave a fart and guess I'm on his list.

    @3 MA Rodger at 18:31 PM on 5 September, 2021

    MA writes: "Or what is the nature of the nonsense being so persistently peddled by Pangburn?"

    Thank you for sharing that list, Pangburn is nothing if not persistent.

    That is the question: the specific nature of his nonsense, shrunk down to a simple concise list.

    @4 Eclectic at 20:32 PM on 5 September, 2021 (to your question)

    Nope I don't expect the leopard to change his spot - I was looking for specifics regarding his claim, since his comment to me has me thinking about using it to build another post around - one that lays out his specific deceptions.  

    And though I have been proactively engaged and learning about climate science for over half century, I'm still not a scientist, so continue turning to them for my meat and potatoes so to speak.  They do a wonderful job of predigesting the data making it so much easier to digest.

    @5 coolmaster at 23:36 PM on 5 September, 2021, your's was the one disappointing comment though I very much appreciate your link - that will be helpful!  The snark I can handle, it's the vague cutzy inside riddles that drive me up a wall.  I'm a simple straightforward guy, looking for straightforward answers, be they information or insults, tell me what's on your mind, don't make me guess.  Just say'n.

    @6 MA Rodger at 22:40 PM on 6 September, 2021

    Badabing, badabang!!!  The jackpot comment.  Except for the time to work on it, I now have the materials at hand for creating that post, once I can carve out the time.

     

    Thank you all !

  14. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    Eclectic @4,

    Pangborn presents a long list of purile misconceptions which, if you are not familiar with the subject, can take a while to rattle out into the light-of-day.

    Thus in his latest masterpiece of nonsense linked above we have in Section 1 para 1:-

    "The radiation energy travels from ghg molecule to ghg molecule (or between surface and ghg) at the speed of light but dwells in each molecule for a few microseconds making the molecule warmer. The dwell time is also called the relaxation time and cumulative dwell time is what causes the GHE"

    It is not "a few microseconds" but on average "many microseconds" and, as atmospheric molecules do collide every "few microseconds", the radiation energy is almost always transferred from the flapping CO2 molecule to other atmospheric molecules. The far-more-numerous atmospheric collisions can set CO2 flapping as well as robbing the energy from a flapping one. As collisions are a product of temperature and and very very numerous, they are overwhelmingly responsible for setting CO2 molecules flapping, often enough for some of the flapping CO2 molecules to radiate-away the equivalent energy trapped from radiation by the CO2. The "cumulative dwell time" of individual molecues is certainly not "what causes the GHE."

    Section 1 para 2 is a bit garbled. The main error is in saying radiation escapes into space "Increasingly with altitude" . There is a quite distinct threshold altitude below which no radiation can escape, and above which all radiation can escape. The temperature of this threshold altitude (which varies with wavelength and GHG concentrations) is what determines how much radiation cools the planet.

    Section 1 para 3 arrives at a 1200-to-one ratio for surface/tropopause H2O levels which lookes like a back-of-fag-packet calculation as it is far too low.

    Section 2 talks of a "notch and 'hash'"  in the Earth's IR spectrum. (I assume notch=hash.) The notches in his Fig 1 are is actually due to the higher altitudes where CO2 & O3 are still absorbing their radation but where H2O is so defuse it is letting it out into space. The CO2 "notch" is not 18Wm^-1 but actually about 30Wm^-2, so causing directly about +8ºC of GH-effect and it is only through such planet-wide warming that the warming is "shared with (redirected to) WV molecules which radiate it to space" because it is now warmer at the altitudes where radiation can escape to space because higher temperatures mean more flapping molecules.

    And so the fool goes on. Pure nonsense through and through.

  15. 2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36

    Thanks for providing this service: hard, good work, that I regularly share into my channels!

    Adding to the above article on food as a breaking point for society as a result of extreme weather/climate desasters ( https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/570284-how-easily-the-climate-crisis-can-become-global-chaos ): see the free PDF download (text and data) from Lester Browns 2012 book: "Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity". http://www.earth-policy.org/books/fpep

  16. Clouds provide negative feedback

    CRE / cloud radiative effect (-19Wm-2)

    CRE

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-018-4413-y

    ...please do not confuse with

    CRF / cloud radiative feedback (+0,42Wm-2 °C-1)

    https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter_07.pdf                      page 74

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Links activated.

    The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.

    Pleas also note that the Comments Policy here discourages pasting just links or images:

    No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic.

    If you have a point to make, please state it, and make sure that it is on topic for the discussion.

     

  17. It's albedo

    @ MA Rodger

    "500,000 cu km of annual global precipitation"

    Humans can only influence evaporation over the oceans indirectly (via climate change) by higher temperatures and stronger, drier winds. The amount of precipitation over the sea is therefor also irrelevant because it cannot be held back there.

    Over land, the average rainfall is only 100,000-120,000km³ - approx. 100xSLR. An intensification of the water cycle by at least 1% will also increase cloud formation over land by ~ 1%.

    A share of ~ 8% of the SLR consists of the water that the continents lose every year. Wetlands are drained, glaciers, permafrost areas, groundwater and aquifers are juiced. This promotes the spread of deserts, which are generally characterized by the fact that there are few clouds, little precipitation, little plantgrow(CO² absorption) and little rH. A third of the land area (~ 50 million km²) is already desert and it is spreading rapidly.

    After the last Pacific Northwest heat wave at the latest, it should be common knowledge that drought acts as a temperature driver.

    The year-round retained amount of 1335km³ is mainly used & transpired in spring and summer after it has been stored in soil moisture and groundwater. Assuming that it is largely transpired through plant growth, an additional 4.9-9.8 Gt of CO² are extracted from the atmosphere every year. 
    This climate protection strategy may seem Spanish to one or the other - and that is exactly what it has been - for centuries. Equipped with sufficient global water cooling over land, the earth's temperature will fall - not rise !

    SLR & global warming will remain a problem as long as neurotic, uncreative CO2 budget-oriented people determine the public's climate protection strategies. 

    This is also intended as a criticism and is addressed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and climate science in general.

  18. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    @citizenschallenge

    If you scroll down 2 days in the comments, you could have read the answer.

    https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=141&p=2#137656

    Pangburn talking about water vapor as a GHG looking to the atmosphere ?  UUUUPS - he couldn`t see any clouds ??? -— Blind & stupid - like other deniers.

  19. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    MA Rodger @3 :

    Thank you for that info.   I had seen comments years ago on SkS by Dan Pangburn, and comments by him in more recent years on several blogs.  His scientific ideas show an overlap of crackpot & delusional aspects.   An interesting psychopathology ~ but far from rare in the sphere of climate denialism.

    Citizenschallenge ~  some googling quickly showed you having a minor clash with Pangburn nearly a decade ago.   With your inquiry at #1 , was it based on the discovery of something valid in "Pangburn 2021" ??   Had you any reason to suppose that a Stuffed Leopard would change its spots . . . or lose its stuffing?

  20. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    citizenschallenge @1,

    You could also ask whether "anybody has seen or commented on":-

    Pangburn (2017)

    "Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace greenhouse gases have little if any effect on climate."

    Pangham (2015)

    "Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has had no significant effect on average global temperature."

    Pangham (2014)

    "CO2 has no significant effect on climate."

    "Long term prediction of average global temperatures depends substantially on long term prediction of sunspot numbers"

    Pangburn (2008)

    "The conclusion from all this is that carbon dioxide change does NOT cause significant climate change."

    The lack of interest in Pangburn's work is evident in the total absence of reference to it within the scientific literature. But perhaps you ask why this lack of interest? Or what is the nature of the nonsense being so persistently peddled by Pangburn?

  21. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    Citizenschallenge @1 :  Dan Pangburn was a frequent commenter in the earlier years of SkS.  His track record for valid science is distinctly poor.

    I would be grateful to learn from you if Pangburn has come up with anything useful.   The importance of water vapor as a strong positive feedback on CO2's greenhouse effect is something well known to climate scientists for about a century.   So I would be interested to hear if Pangburn is making a valuable contribution to current knowledge.   It would be a surprise if he were ~ but anything is possible!  But from the little info you have given, it sounds very unlikely.

  22. citizenschallenge at 13:59 PM on 5 September 2021
    Skeptical Science New Research for Week #35, 2021

    I don't suppose anyone has seen or commented on Dan Pangburn 2021? —  

    LINK

    'During the time period when water vapor (WV) and carbon dioxide (CO2) have been accurately measured worldwide, 1988-now, WV increase has been responsible for the human contribution to Global Warming/Climate Change with no significant net contribution from CO2."

     

    If so, a link would be much appreciated.  

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Embedded link.

  23. The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news

    I consider it extremely dangerous or even fatal for life on earth to rely solely on the future, hypothetical CO² emissions of mankind, which also depends primarily on the psychological readiness of capital-driven, ignorant fossil fuel junkies . The rise in temperature that has taken place to this day has put a lot of psychological, physical, biological and ecological (just to name the most important) evolutionary pressure and feedback into operation, which in their interaction and mutual reinforcement cannot be calculated or estimated by (climate) science at all. The 30 years to 2050 can be damn long if you have one leg in hell and the other on the fire hose. 

  24. It's albedo

    coolmaster @71,

    There is something like 500,000 cu km of annual global precipitation (and the preceding evaporation) which might suggest the addition of 1,335 cu km evaporation per year is small on a global scale but a big volume in terms of SLR.

    But water doesn't stay so long in the atmosphere with the atmospheric water content just 13,000 cu km suggesting an average residency time of less than 10 days. Thus if the continual addition of 1,335 cu km evaporation per year into the atmosphere were achieved, it would pro rata result in the removal of some 34 cu km from the planet's surface/oceans, reducing sea level by 0.1mm, the equivalent of about ten-day's-worth of today's SLR. And that would be a one-off reduction requiring the evaporation of 1,335 cu km each and every year to maintain.

  25. It's albedo

    @Bob Loblaw

    "useful extension"

    They are not only a useful extension of the understanding of climate - but also the basis for recognizing where and how humans intervene (or could intervene) in the climate.
    Fighting the causes of an evil (GHG emissions) is important and right - but is it actually enough? - I would say - NO.                                            After decades of meditation on Mauna Loa Observatory / Hawaii          GHG concentrations are still rising steeply.

    So we urgently need a second, additional strategy that is potent enough to stop further global warming.

    All possibilities that humans could have available are shown in the changing global radiation balances. There you not only find the disturbed carbon cycle, but also the energy flow of the global water cycle.

    When looking at the actual problems (decreasing biodiversity, SLR, droughts, record temperatures, floods, ...) that humans and creation have to suffer with global warming, it is noticeable that they all mainly have to do with the presence or absence of water. The idea of influencing the climate via the water cycle is therefore only logical, more direct and, above all, much faster. (All firefighters in this world nod their heads understandingly)

    Let me now briefly explain this alternative climate protection strategy, which does not care much about the causes (mainly CO² & other warming GHG), but should at least noticeably alleviate the above-mentioned effects and problems of climate change:

    - 3.7mm SLR = 9mm over the land area = 1335km³ of water = 2.7% of the global runoff via the rivers.


    - This volume can be retained by a wide variety of measures before it flows into the oceans and converted into evaporation.


    - 9L / m² corresponds to ~ 1% of the average annual rainfall over land and should therefore create ~ 1% additional clouds over the land mass. Also a multiplication effect arises because there is a high probability that these clouds will in turn rain down again over a (different) area of land.


    - The net effect of the clouds(CRE) is given by Prof. M. Wild (ETH Zurich) as -19W / m².       + 1% additional cloud cover over land (-0.19W / m²) corresponds globally to -0.07W / m²   and is therefore a lot more than the current annual increase in radiative forcing.


    !!! The rise in sea level and the rise in earth temperature would thus (in theory) be stopped. !!!

    In the graphic below I tried to show the simulated additional amount of clouds and water(red numbers) in the radiation balance. I look forward to your criticism and assessment. - Thanks

    all_clear_sky_land_ocean

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Adjusted image size. Please keep your images down to a width of 450px because otherwise it breaks the page formatting.

  26. It's albedo

    The discussion diagrams provided by coolmaster in the preceeding comment are a useful expansion of the traditional "Trenberth" diagram that shows global averages.

    • Clear skies and overcast skies are quite different.
    • Land and sea are quite different.
    • Visible light and IR radiation are quite different.

    Add geographical differences related to latitude, continentality, global circulation patterns, etc. and you see even more variation.

    Complex? Yes.

    Incomprehensible? No.

    This complexity is what general circulation models of the earth-atmosphere system do. Divide the planet up into small areas, model all radaition and other forms of energy transfer, the water cycle, etc. and watch the atmosphere and oceans respond.

    Summary diagrams are summary diagrams - not detailed models.

  27. CO2 effect is saturated

    Oh, and note my comment #601, where I point out the error in comparing adding insualtion to a house (kept at constant temperature, reduces required  heat input) with the earth-atmosphere system (constant heat input, adding insualtion raises temperature).

    The devil is in the details.

  28. CO2 effect is saturated

    Having significantly decreased my home heating costs by adding insulation to basement walls, I can attest to the verity of MA Rodger's diagram in comment #613. Yes, the roof area is usually the first place to add insulation in a poorly-insulated house, but walls are also important.

    My house was constructed in 2004, when local building codes only required R-12 for the top four feet of basement walls. And that top four feet was usually only covered by crappy "insulation in a bag" with no other wall treatement. Pathetic insulation performace.

    Current building codes have improved so that new construction requires R-20 for the entire basement wall. My renovations met the R-20 requirement and virtually eliminated air leakage. Our fuel costs dropped by about 15%. (Main and second-floor walls were already R-20.)

  29. CO2 effect is saturated

    Eclectic @612,

    The analogy addressed by the OP is faulty but the criticism of it @611 is also faulty.

    If you add insulation to your roof, the diagram below shows it will not alter 74% of the heat loss, so doubling roof insulation thickness would reduce total heat loss by about an eighth. The doubling of CO2 'thickness' would add about +3ºC to a +33ºC GH-effect, so reducing total heat loss by roughly an eleventh, a not-disimilar proportion.

    House insulation

  30. CO2 effect is saturated

    Amory @611 :  Yes, fair enough for conventional house insulation.

    But Marc Morano [a paid propagandist]  is giving a completely misleading analogy regarding the so-called GreenHouse Effect.   The stacking of housing insulation sheets is vastly different from the GreenHouse Effect mechanism of gasses & lapse rate in the atmosphere.   The fault lies in Marc Morano . . . and his "analogy" is not really worth pursuing.

  31. CO2 effect is saturated

    The explanatory quote in the fallacy statement is itself fallacious: "It's like putting insulation in your attic. They give a recommended amount and after that you can stack the insulation up to the roof and it's going to have no impact." False. The recommended amount of roof insulation is a minimum or supposedly economically optimal amount, not a maximum. The more insulation you add, the less heat can flow through it: infinitely thick insulation transmits infinitesimal heat. To be sure, adding thicker insulation becomes less effective because there's less heat already stopped by prior insulation and therefore unavailable to escape. Thus if the first 10 cm of insulation (for illustration) halves your heat loss, then adding a second 10 cm of identical insulation will save half of the remaining half, raising your total saving to three-fourths, and so on. But the belief that the second 10 cm has no effect is pure physics illiteracy, casting further doubt on the [fallacious] CO2 saturation claim.

    Interestingly, there's a second layer of fallacy here, which every standard engineering textbook I've seen commits. Even if attic-insulation standards were economically optimal when conventionally calculated—comparing their cost with the present value of the heating energy saved over the years—that calculation is actually misframed if your aim is to optimize the house as a system rather than the insulation as a component. My house, at 2200m elevation near Aspen CO where it used to dip as low as –44˚C, used roughly triple the normally "optimal" amount of insulation (plus airtightness, ventilation heat recovery, and "superwindows" insulating like 16–22 sheets of glass and facing mostly south)...in all, enough to eliminate the heating system. This cut construction cost more than enough to pay for the efficiency gains that eliminated the heating system, so our construction cost went down while we saved ~99% of space-heating energy. That's the start of a long and interesting story about integrative design, introduced in a half-hour talk at https://energy.stanford.edu/events/special-energy-seminar-amory-lovins-holmes-hummel or a foundational peer-reviewed paper at https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad965. Integrative design can make the energy efficiency resource severalfold bigger, yet cheaper—an important climate solution. More in "Recalibrating Climate Prospects" at https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab55ab. 

  32. It's albedo

    Also in response to blaisct's comment #66 posted over on the Urban Heat Island discussion. 

     The albedo is relative ... and depends primarily on the wavelength of the light that hits the body. We should therefore always specify a wavelength range for Albedo. Otherwise, strictly speaking, the entire spectrum of the sun is decisive. This relativity to the albedo is particularly important for an element as widespread worldwide as H²O.

    As water vapor, it absorbs (28W / m²) largely only in the long-wave range and lets most of the visible light pass through.

    As liquid water on the surface, it absorbs long-wave and short-wave light very strongly, although as a cloud in the same aggregate state, finely distributed in the atmosphere, it again reflects a high proportion (-47W / m²) of the high-energy, short-wave radiation.

    As solid ice or snow on the surface, it reflects short-wave radiation as well as clouds. On the other hand, in the long-wave range it behaves like a black body and a layer of ice over the open sea isolates the one below
    warmer water and prevents it from emitting its heat radiation to the atmosphere and space which in turn relativizes the ice albedo effect.

    So @bleisct is not that wrong if he ascribes the Earth's albedo a major influence on global temperatures. The atmosphere (and every single component - including CO² molecules) also has an albedo if the solar spectrum is viewed holistically across all wavelength ranges and light refraction and transmission are taken into account as factors. Higher levels of GHG lower earth`s albedo by absorbing ~20% of radiation energy.

    @MA Rodger is right when he remarks that the cloud albedo ingeniously has the strongest albedo and the global albedo(change) is of very minor importance over urban areas.

      With a global mean surface albedo of 13.5% and net shortwave clear-sky flux of 287 Wm−2 at the TOA this results in a global mean clear-sky surface and atmospheric shortwave absorption of 214 and 73 Wm−2, respectively. From the newly-established diagrams of the global energy balance under clear-sky and all-sky conditions, we quantify the cloud radiative effects(CRE) not only at the TOA, but also within the atmosphere and at the surface.

    The cloud-free global energy balance and inferred cloud radiative effects

     Illustration of the magnitudes of the global mean shortwave, longwave and net (shortwave + longwave) cloud radiative effects (CRE) at the Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA), within the atmosphere and at the Earth’s surface, determined as differences between the respective all-sky and clear-sky radiation budgets presented in Fig. 14. Units Wm−2 

    When assessing the earth`s albedo, it`s also helpfull to have a look to the different radiation balances from land and sea and the fact that the cloud albedo is very closely interlinked with latent heat flux of evaporation in the radiation balance. 

    Do not confuse the strongly cooling CRE (-19W / m²) with the warming cloud radiative feedback CRF of ~ + 0.42Wm-2 ° C-1, which is a missing +RF in the above graphic by @Bob Loblaw as is also the radiative forcing of the ice Albedo effect.

    .The energy balance over land and oceans

    The energy balance over land and oceans

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Reduced image size.

  33. Here’s what makes a new Amazon carbon study so unnerving

    Sorry to say this, but wrong biome to provide for "the planet’s ever-growing carbon sink". Fire just being one reason. Notice this from the paper? 

    "The other three areas, where forests are less depleted, were found to be either carbon-neutral or serving as weak carbon sinks"

    This carbon pool is not the sink that matters most. Even when healthy it is at best a weak sink - to neutral. Sure reducing that pool is troublesome and doesn't help mitigate AGW, but again, wrong biome. Even restoring that pool would have limited help long term.

    The carbon sink that matters for AGW mitigation is the grasslands soil pool. This is mainly why I hate just using terms like "ecosystem restoration" and "ecosystem services" alone without context. Which ecosystems? Which services? Otherwise we get well meaning but quite naive "plant a tree" campaigns which have minimal mitigation potential.

  34. Here’s what makes a new Amazon carbon study so unnerving

    Yes, carbon studies all around the world are unnerving, because people are beginning to doubt if CO2 was really the reason for global warming or the result. Dowelling of the permafrost and wildfires and accelerated decomposition caused by elevated temperatures are the second most important carbon sources of the world, just behind rock weathering!
    One reason for Global Warming, surprisingly, is not taken into account. It is the suppressed Global Water Cycle. That’s the reason for the importance of the Amazonian rainforests and the other rainforests in the world. They booster evapotranspiration. In the Amazon, this happens all along the way from the mangroves of the estuary, up to the high rainforests in the pre-Andean basin.
    Especially the oldest Climax-trees in the Amazon, which sometimes act as carbon sources, show tremendous evapotranspiration of more than 1 m³/d. Liquid water which absorbs 550 Cal/ml and expands 3000x, by transforming to gaseous vapor lighter than air. This additional pressure causes a strong Amazonian convection which directs the humidity to the northern and southern hemispheres. In the south, the importance of the flying rivers from the Amazon is well known. More than ever, nowadays, when we have to endure the consequences of their fail. In the north the Amazonian high pressure forces the humidity of the Orinoco and Caribbean Sea to the southern US-coast. But the Amazonian humidity gets up higher, composing atmospheric rivers which flow to Europe and bring the snow to Greenland and Scandinavia. The very unknown importance of the upper layer height-dynamics, between troposphere and stratosphere, may play a decisive role on global cooling control by the Global Water Cycle.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Sloganeering snipped.  If you're going to make extravagant claims, you need to first demonstrate that you have an understanding of the subject matter and to be able to cite the published scientific literature that supports your claims.  This is not the first time you've done this at this site so this requirement is not a stranger to you.

    You are welcome to resubmit this comment, provided you can meet those requirements and compose the comment accordingly.

  35. citizenschallenge at 04:13 AM on 1 September 2021
    Catastrophic Hurricane Ida hits Louisiana with 150 mph winds

    Post Port Fourchon images

    https://weather.com/photos/news/2021-08-30-hurricane-ida-aerial-photos

  36. CO2 was higher in the past

    Please note that we published new versions written by Howard Lee of both the basic and the intermediate rebuttal versions today (August 31/September 1 2021 depending on where you are). Comments above this one therefore refer to what are now the archived basic and archived intermediate rebuttal versions respectively.

    Please check the new versions and the many references linked in them!

  37. Why trying to prove yourself wrong is the key to being right

    Chuck @2,

    The OP is not addressing the impact of CO2 on climate but considering more generally how science continually tests its theories to ensure they are sound. So to answer your initial question, it is not true that this OP (or SkS) are "arguing against CO2 causing climate change."

    As for your own theories, these appear very shaky. Yes NOAA do publish hourly data collected at MLO (& elsewhere) showing CO2, H2O (or at least Relative Humidity) and CH4. Yet you say these data can be assessed against "global temperature records" which "proves that global warming is real." Quite how you would achieve this 'proof' is far from explained and I would suggest far from achievable.

    And I would caution you that the idea that temporal precedence alone is not as strong an argument as you appear to believe. Pedantically such precedence does not survive in a relativistic world and, more real-world, matching pertubations in two time series (for instance global temperature and MLO CO2) does not prove the earlier pertubation 'cause' the later pertubation. Indeed to demonstrate the difficulties,we actually do see ENSO causing such temperature & CO2 pertubations with differing time lags.

  38. Why trying to prove yourself wrong is the key to being right

    Chuck @2 :

      it would be helpful if you clarified your expressions.

    Your [hypotheses] Theories #1, #2 and #3 are somewhat obscure in their meanings.   For instance [in #2] this sentence : "It takes about a week for a flux in CO2 to fully [?] find [?] and be saturated [?] in longwave radiation."   ~How does that have a meaning in basic physics?

    It is a fruitless task to generate truly falsifiable ideas, without first properly understanding the fundamental physics involved in mainstream climate science.

    Quite possibly this discussion belongs on 1 or 2 different threads.

  39. Why trying to prove yourself wrong is the key to being right

    You seem to be arguing against CO2 causing climate change. Is that true?

    The one way to falsify that CO2 causes climate change is to test precedence. In physics, even relativity theory, cause must come before the effect. So while you can't prove cause, you can falsify a theory if the cause does not precede the effect.

    If you go to every climate center in the world (there are nine), you will find time stamped CO2 and global temperature records (T). These records are what proves that global warming is real. There is no higher authority.

    Pair them up with CO2 records from NOAA Global (buoy) or Mauna Loa (tower). 

    Choose a lag in time that is appropriate to test each theory (there are three).

    Theory #1. CO2 forces climate change. Because this occurs at near the speed of light, Mauna Loa has hourly data that is perfect for this test. You can clearly see the greenhouse effects of H2O and CH4. They are strong and measurable. The CO2 effect is strong at a lag of one hour, and then gets interesting after that. It takes about a week for a flux in CO2 to fully find and be saturated by longwave radiation.

    Theory Two. The associate aerosol effect of CO2 neutralizes the CO2 greenhouse effect.  Aerosol effects also occur at the speed of light, so once again, MLO hourly data is perfect to see what happens.

    Theory Three. The affect of CO2 on life that cools counters CO2's greenhouse effect. This cause-effect occurs at the speed of biology (slow). So monthly data is perfect to see that cause-effect. The results will blow your mind. Once the "green" effect of CO2 grows enough (about 4 to 11 months), does it more than counter the "greenhouse" effect that is at full lasting strength after about a week? If it does, then CO2 forcing will not precede global warming and theory #1 can be disproved.

  40. It's the sun

    I appreciate the argument on recent decrease in solar output. But that is the "Gravity doesn't exist" argument. A person tracks a falling ball. Initially, gravity theory and fall rates match. Then they no longer match. So lesser scientists conclude that it's not gravity making the ball fall. "See, if it was gravity, then the ball fall rate would continue to rise." There are good arguments, but that's not a worthy one.

    Scientists have long ago learned to account for fluids. With gravity, it's friction provided by the fluid called air. In climate, it's the fluid called oceans.

    If I turn the stove down, stove element temperature will decrease. But, if the pan still has a temperature lower than the stove element, pan temperature will continue to rise. Oceans are about 7C warmer than the atmosphere.  As sun and ocean temperatures fall, they will continue to increase the temperature of the atmosphere. Oceans will always have a temperature higher than the atmosphere. But, the gap does narrow as oceans cool and the atmospheric temperature continues to rise.

    Think of atmosphere as aluminum foil and think of the oceans as the cast iron pan that is absorbing (and storing) solar heat. This will get you closer to the truth about climate change.

  41. Why trying to prove yourself wrong is the key to being right

    99% of people who "got sick" lived.

    99.99% of the population did not get sick or got mild symptoms.

    The vast majority of people who got sik and died were very old and sick and the next major group were all this and also obese.

    Of the people under the age of 35, 99.999% did not get sick and die

    Those who have died fit the demographic of those who are going to die every year, just more so.

    All deaths are tragic....wait a minute....there not....WE ALL DIE!

    This issue does not fit any of the parameters of a pandemic. Also they lie when they say that natural immunity is not as good as vax.

    The genetic based injections are not vaccines by the historic definitions.

    The injections neither prevent infection nor transmission whis were the two reasons sold to the public for why every man, woman, and child in the world must be injected.

    All of this is age old, well established SCIENCE and needs to be understood.

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Off-topic.

  42. Can Hydrogen Fuel Power the Planet?

    This is not simply about energy efficiency. Its all about user friendliness and hydrogen fuel cell cars have a big problem: Nobody is likely to buy these hydrogen fuel cell cars without an extensive and easily accessible refueling network, because you cannot refuel these cars at home ( to my knowledge). And no company is likely to provide a decent refueling network in case the cars still dont attract buyers.

    And so what we see are quite small and experimental refueling networks. Japan has 134 refueling stations. Germany has 90, The USA 46, China 39,  about 20 other countries have typically around 6 refuleing stations. It doesn't seem like not a lot of refueling stations to inspire public confidence, given it's for entire countries, and uptake of hydrogen fuel cell cars has been slower than EV's, unsurprisingly. Obviously other factors contribute, but I know I would be nervous buying one if there weren't many refuling stations reasonably close by and between cities.

    However hydrogen fuel cell trucks have a future, because they have good range, and  the truck companies provide their own refueling facilities. Information on hydrogen fuel cell trucks already being trialled is described here.



  43. IPCC reveals how we are changing the climate

    High Ed: If you watched Taylor because you lean conservative and agree with many other things Heartland, I suggest you try his brother Jerry Taylor at the Niskanencenter with respect to climate science etc. instead.

  44. Can Hydrogen Fuel Power the Planet?

    Jan: H2 is not a big problem in the atmosphere, so leaks only matter as a factor of fuel/energy loss. Atmospheric H2 is mostly consumed in soils, and little to none makes its way into the stratosphere.

  45. Can Hydrogen Fuel Power the Planet?

    Jan, fuel cells are actually not that efficient. I suggets you digest this:

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-fuelcell-vehicle-great-idea-theory-paul-martin/

    The battery EV is actually about three times as efficient compared to a hydrgen fuel car with fuel cell ...

  46. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #34, 2021

    plincoin24:

    If you follow the links to the full report:

    https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/#FullReport

    ...you will see that it says:

    The Technical Summary (TS), the full Report Chapters, the Annexes and the Supplementary Materials are the Final Government Distribution versions, and remain subject to revisions following the SPM approval, corrigenda, copy-editing, and layout. Although these documents still carry the note from the Final Government Distribution “Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute” they may be freely published subject to the disclaimer above, as the report has now been approved and accepted.

  47. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #34, 2021

    I just tried to download the IPCC report from the top of this homepage. It would appear that the link leads to an incomplete version which is missing figures and with text on certain pages requesting the user not to distribute this version. I think it needs to be replaced with the version that was meant to be released to the public.

  48. IPCC reveals how we are changing the climate

    I'm sure Adam is well-qualified to produce his video's.  But the world is the way it is, and anyone wearing blue nail-polish while he makes his appeals on video is just not going to be taken seriously, by half of the American public.  The other side of this debate is tatted and bulked up, full of colorful language, and appeals to testosterone-laced dominance: probably because the fossil-fuel corporations know it sells. 

    Half of America will take 2 seconds to decide if this is someone they want to spend 10 minutes of their lives with.  Its wrong, but in those 2 seconds, they are judging based on visual cues.  I didn't make this world: I'm just reporting on how it is.

  49. Jan van Dalfsen 1 at 01:54 AM on 27 August 2021
    Can Hydrogen Fuel Power the Planet?

    The engineer Rosie Barnes said they could burn H2 which could be useful for aircraft, but what about its use in fuel cells where electricity is produced without burning Hydrogen. Fuel cells simply reverse the electrolysis that produced the green hydrogen. Fuel cells produce electicity without wasting energy producing heat as well as electricity.                                                                                                                        I agree with the video that the best thing is to produce electricity as close as possible to where it is to be used. However, for industries with a high electricity appetite green hydrogen can be efficiently and safely transported as NH3 which doesn't take up anyway near as much space as H2. That would be useful for providing energy to factories requiring a higher concentration of energy than they can produce in the limited space they have at the factory.                                                                                                                                                                                     My first worry is that H2 is so small a molecule it could easily leak little by little. Eventually what effect is all that extra H2 going to have in the upper atmosphere?                                                                                                                                                                                                      My second worry is that the distinction between blue hydrogen and green hydrogen might get blurred in practice.                                                                                                                                                                    Thirdly, some natural gas miners like Twiggy Forrest promise to implement a plan to eventually transition to using green hydrogen in their natural gas facilities. They say that the facilities they are building for the natural gas they have rights to now so that these facilities can later be transitioned to using green hydrogen. Even with his marine ecology doctorate, if Twiggy Forrest is mining lots of natural gas, when does he switch to using his facilities for green hydrogen instead of using the natural gas, especially if he still has an abundant supply of natural gas? Is the promise of transitioning to green hydrogen a type of green washing of natural gas mining?

  50. One Planet Only Forever at 04:51 AM on 25 August 2021
    IPCC reveals how we are changing the climate

    Ed Evans,

    I agree with Eclectic.

    And I would extend the comment to all the "Popular in the Moment" crowd who are "uninterested in fuller presentations of information" or won't bother to independently verify if a claim they had an instant instinctive liking for was a valid understanding of what is going on, what is harmful, and how to limit harm done based on increased awareness.

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