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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 5051 to 5100:

Eclectic at 19:03 PM on 31 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Engineer-Poet and Michael Sweet :

though non-expert in this area, I can point out some context for the Linear-No-Threshold (LNT) concept and radiation-hormesis concept (of benefit from low-dose radioactivity exposure). But I won't go into the fundamental evolutionary aspects, nor the False-Binary aspects of the discussion.

# Yet regardless of the existent/non-existent status of LNT & hormesis, the whole question is moot for fission power plants, because of the bogeyman status of radioactivity (wrt public opinion).

# It is notoriously difficult to achieve good-quality, un-assailable scientific studies in the biological field ~ owing to the large number of confounding factors. Animal studies are in short-lived non-primate species. Observational studies in humans, have selection bias as well as even greater confounding factors.

As general background, I note [without citation] that human & animal studies show health/longevity benefits of reduced-calorie (semi-starvation) diets . . . but in pragmatic terms, this will never be a politically-acceptable mode. Similarly, the surviving Prisoners-Of-War (from Japanese prison camps in Malaya) did very well in subsequent years ~ but it is arguable whether this resulted from "hormetic" semi-starvation effect or the survivor-selection effect. Again, moot in pragmatic terms.

# The metastudy [linked @263] by TD Luckey (2008) shows its own red flags. Luckey does not touch on the profound difficulties in the post-war studies (even up to the early 1980's) of atomic bomb survivors who showed increased lifespans. Control groups from outside the blast area, included exposure to "residual radiation" [fall-out] ~ as were the subjects, to an uncertain degree. Fetus abnormalities were assessed by "phenotypic abnormality" (i.e. by crude physical examination). And in these early times, there was of course no possibility of technical genomic assessment of survivor subjects and controls.

Ethically, no human experimentation is possible. We do have retrospective studies [cosmic radiation exposure] of airline flight crews ~ the results are not-at-all reassuring, but are as expected fraught with confounding factors.

One of the red flags is Luckey's comment: "The redistribution of radioactive waste is a solution for better health in the 21st century."

We have quite enough trouble with conspiracists such as the Antivaxxers and Chemtrails people. I won't even try to imagine the political response to "redistribution of radioactive waste".

BaerbelW at 17:58 PM on 31 July 2021

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #30, 2021

Thanks Dawei for the heads-up! Doug is aware of the issue with the malformed PDF-links and the blog post will be updated in due course.

Dawei at 14:50 PM on 31 July 2021

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #30, 2021

Most of the links are broken. For example the first 7 of them. Glad to see using the DOI under the main link, I guess a bit of a bug related to that change?

They look cut off... for example for:

Increasing probability of record-shattering climate extremes

The DOI it shows is:
10.1038/s41558

It should be:
10.1038/s41558-021-01092-9

Engineer-Poet at 11:23 AM on 31 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @262:

You post this in response to my citing the most recent National Academy of Science BEIR VII concensus science report on the topic of LRNT, published in 2006. This report was specifically written to determine the consensus of scientists on the effects of low level exposure to radiation and resolve the LRNT argument. They strongly endorsed LRNT.

Yes, about that. I found a great many references to it, including one taking the authors to task for failing to deal with issues straightforwardly(sadly, the full text is paywalled):

Risk of low-dose radiation and the BEIR VII report: A critical review of what it does and doesn't say Michael K O'Connor PMID: 28826776 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejmp.2017.07.016 Abstract This article briefly reviews the history behind the BEIR VII report and the use of the linear no-threshold hypothesis. The BEIR VII committee considered four primary sources of data on the stochastic effects of ionizing radiation. These were environmental studies, occupational studies, medical studies and studies on the atomic bomb survivors. These sources are briefly reviewed along with key studies that run counter to the LNT hypothesis. We review many of the assumptions, hypotheses and subjective decisions used to generate risk estimates in the BEIR VII report. Position statement by the Health Physics Society, American Association of Physicists in Medicine, and UNSCEAR support the conclusion that the risk estimates in the BEIR VII report should not be used for estimating cancer risks from low doses of ionizing radiation.

It wasn't until I was way down in the search results before I found the actual report itself rather than your link to a press release about it (which, strangely, did not link to the report either). Sadly, I can't find specific quotes with which to identify details about which there is more recent research. But here's something from the introduction:

(4) assess the current status and relevance to risk models of biologic data and models of carcinogenesis, including critical assessment of all data that might affect the shape of the response curve at low doses, in particular, evidence for or against thresholds in dose-response relationships and evidence for or against adaptive responses and radiation hormesis;

Except they didn't do that, or did it incompetently. Here's a meta-study from just 3 years later, compiling studies which contradict BEIR and LNT (full text at the link):

Media reports of deaths and devastation produced by atomic bombs convinced people around the world that all ionizing radiation is harmful. This concentrated attention on fear of miniscule doses of radiation. Soon the linear no threshold (LNT) paradigm was converted into laws. Scientifically valid information about the health benefits from low dose irradiation was ignored. Here are studies which show increased health in Japanese survivors of atomic bombs. Parameters include decreased mutation, leukemia and solid tissue cancer mortality rates, and increased average lifespan. Each study exhibits a threshold that repudiates the LNT dogma. The average threshold for acute exposures to atomic bombs is about 100 cSv. Conclusions from these studies of atomic bomb survivors are: One burst of low dose irradiation elicits a lifetime of improved health. Improved health from low dose irradiation negates the LNT paradigm. Effective triage should include radiation hormesis for survivor treatment.

Back to you now.

You are welcome to your opinion, but the consensus of scientific experts is LRNT.

I know it's NOT a consensus, because the BEIR VII committee included Dr. Edward J. Calabrese, who is a strong opponent of LNT and has published a number of papers showing that it is inaccurate and often flatly contradictory to the truth.

michael sweet at 02:06 AM on 31 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Engineer-Poet:

Congratulations on getting your first warning on your first post! A new record.

I note that in your 6 post rant that you have referred to only two peer reviewed reports, both in post 259. One report, published in 1958, is apparently an attempt by the nuclear industry to argue against using the LInear Response No Threshold model of exposure to harmful radiation. You post this in response to my citing the most recent National Academy of Science BEIR VII concensus science report on the topic of LRNT, published in 2006. This report was specifically written to determine the consensus of scientists on the effects of low level exposure to radiation and resolve the LRNT argument. They strongly endorsed LRNT. You are welcome to your opinion, but the consensus of scientific experts is LRNT. Upthread a nuclear supporter said the data supporting LRNT was too old. Here you use ancient data to argue against the most recent NAS report which used no data older than 1990. Even in 1958 the consensus was LRNT. You also link a 1982 paper that describes the medical effect of radiation. That seems unrelated to LRNT exposure in large populations.

In post 256 your comments on entropy are designed to start an argument. You do not add anything to the defination of heat, energy and entropy.

Post 256: your speculation on how future reactors might be designed is irrelevant to the question that was asked. Again you are trying to start an argument and not answer the question asked.

Post 256: you make the unuspported claim that nuclear reactors are safe. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates 27,000 deaths from Chernobyl alone. The nuclear industry denies responsibility for the people they kill.

Post 257: Peer reviewed papers state that not enough materials exist to build out more than an insignificant number of nuclear reactors. See Abbott 2012 linked in the OP. It is the job of nuclear proponents to show that enough material exists for your proposed system. Claiming there are many undesigned, proposed reactors that might use less materials is not an answer. You must show materials exist for your proposal. Nuclear proponents claimed that enough materials did not exist for a renewable system. Jacobson 2011 (free copy for those who don't know how to find papers) shows all the materials needed for a renewable energy system exist.

Post 258: Arguing that it is a good idea to build cheap, unsafe nuclear reactors will not get you many supporters. If you think that is a good argument go for it.

Post 260: I note you have only your own, unsupported opinion to argue with Abbott 2012. I note that you have no experience designing or operating a nuclear power plant and have no related educational experience either. I guess you learned a lot watching videos on the internet.

Post 261: I linked the same copy of Jacobson 2018 the moderator found at least 3 times upthread like here and here and here. It indicates how familiar you are with the peer reviewed literature that you are unable to find a copy of a linked paper yourself.

I will not respond in more detail to your extended Gish Gallops. I know that your system to issue long, repetitive, opinion statements unsupported by any data. Eventually the moderators will ban you for sloganeering. They have already started warning you for not adhering to the comments policy. If you do not start producing data to support your insane claims they will not allow you to post any more.

Moderator Response:

[BL] Please let the moderators do the moderation.

Engineer-Poet at 12:39 PM on 30 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Note to all: Jacobson et al. 2018 remains paywalled in 2021. This makes it infeasible for un-connected critics to give it a full fact-checking.

If you wish to be fair in your demands for criticism, do please quote the specific claims and whatever references are provided for them (recursively for the references that are also paywalled).

Moderator Response:

[RH] It took me less than a minute to find a full version.

[BL} Engineer-Poet. Nearly every one of your comments had required moderation of some sort. And you have had three different moderators step in.

In addition to finding it difficult to find easily-found papers, you seem to be having difficulty reading and understanding a simple comments policy. Amongst your many diverse forms of violations, you are being excessively repetitious, sloganeering, using ALL CAPS, and taking a very inflammatory tone.

Final Warning

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Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive, off-topic posts or intentionally misleading comments and graphics or simply make things up. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.

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Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter, as no further warnings shall be given.

Engineer-Poet at 12:35 PM on 30 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @126:

Abbott 2012 gives about 15 reasons why nuclear cannot produce more than 5% of world power.

Thanks for the link. It's much easier to debunk something that's ready to hand, rather than having to dig for it. If Abbott was serious, he'd put his strongest points first and last. Yet what's his first objection? Site selection! Never mind that pretty much ANY site that has ever hosted a coal plant is suitable for a nuclear plant. How weak is that? Next, he goes into neutron embrittlement. So what? A plant is eventually going to become too expensive to keep refurbishing, though Rosatom has already changed that game with its innovative annealing technology. Adding an additional 30 years of RPV life to a plant which can run for 80 years without it, you've got the potential for over a century of operation. Reactors like FLiBe, Thorcon and Elysium have none of Abbott's supposedly-insurmountable elemental scarcity problems. So far as I know, none of them even HAVE control rods and none use burnable poisons either; they just drain the reactor to tanks in a sub-critical configuration. Neither do they use zirconium. And what's the big deal with end-of-life reactor vessels? Just throw the metal into an electric furnace and forge it into new ones. As for "radioactive waste", a great deal of that can either be recycled or has plenty of valuable uses (yes, even Sr-90 and Cs-137). Frankly, after seeing how pathetic Abbott's objections are, I'm astounded that anyone is still citing him. I'm not going to bother reading any further in his paper, I have better things to do such as refilling my drink.

If there's any real obstacle to scaling nuclear energy to world-powering levels, it's the immediate supply of fissiles. Fast-spectrum reactors can generate net fissiles from uranium, but the fission cross-section of transuranics gets pretty small at high neutron energies so the concentration has to be much higher than in thermal-spectrum reactors. You can see this in the proposals for both standard and high-burnup cores for the S-PRISM reactor; even the standard core requires almost 2.5 tons at over 21% total Pu at the beginning of a fuel cycle and the doubling time is almost 42 years. The potential for rapid scale-up exists with thorium, however. IIUC, the total fissile inventory of a 1 GW(e) Th/U-233 reactor is around 100 kg, it consumes about 0.8 tons/year and has a breeding ratio of about 1.03. Ergo, every year such a reactor would consume 800 kg of fissiles and generate an extra 24 kg or thereabouts. This leads to a doubling time of less than 3 years at scale. 30 years of doublings every 3 years scales up roughly 1000x. This is the sort of rate we need to make things happen.

(Note that tone comes across VERY poorly in text, even given emojis and pseudo-tags like . Sticking to the meaning of the straight text instead of assuming what was very likely not meant is generally a good policy.)

Moderator Response:

[RH] Once again, you need to read the terms for commenting on this website.

Engineer-Poet at 11:33 AM on 30 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @106:

Apparently every health organization in the world and every nuclear regulatory organization in the world use LRNT.

Health physics doesn't, and as people who work directly with therapeutic radiation on a daily basis, they're the true experts. For instance, health physicists calculate both radiation doses and dose rates to kill tumors while doing the least damage to surrounding healthy tissue. If LNT was correct, the mortality of healthy tissues around tumors would not be changed by dividing the total radiation dose into fractions with recovery time between them (sample paper from 1982; this has been established for a LONG time). But it IS changed, proving LNT to be false.

LNT has been contradicted by evidence going back at LEAST to the UNSCEAR report issued in 1958. When steady gamma irradiation EXTENDS the lives of lab rats by at least 25% and by as much as 1/3 versus controls, you've got iron-clad proof that LNT is false... and the pretense for adhering to it requires malicious intent.

You have been informed. You can no longer claim ignorance as an excuse.

Moderator Response:

[RH] Again, please tone it down.

Engineer-Poet at 11:31 AM on 30 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @29:

Higher prices for nuclear are not generally considered a positive trait. In the USA we prefer lower prices.

So why do you prefer policies which increase the price of GHG-free nuclear energy? Be specific.

Engineer-Poet at 11:30 AM on 30 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @14:

I have provided two examples of hafnium use in civilian reactors so you have shifted the goalposts. We do not know how much hafnium is used in civilian reactors because you have provided no references to show its use is limited.

On the contrary, YOU need to show that the use of hafnium is required by ALL nuclear fission technologies, because so many of them are fungible. For the moment, hafnium and gadolinium are used because they are convenient. They will stop being convenient, and stop being used, when they become too costly. What's hard to understand? Boron is a convenient and a pretty cheap replacement as a neutron poison. For that matter, sub-critical drain tanks provide a completely non-neutron absorbent method of shutting down a molten-fuel reactor. There's nothing consumed, so nothing to use up.

If you wish to argue that enough enough metals exist for reactors you must provide a peer reviewed report that details all the metals used in nuclear plants and shows they exist.

FFS, there are more types of nuclear reactors than you have ever counted. PWR, BWR, LMFBR (both sodium- and lead-cooled), PBR, MSR... the list goes on. They ALL have different attributes, and NONE of the detriments you attribute apply to even a majority of them, let alone ALL of them.

You are also confused about citations. Scientific papers are written for peope who have done their homework and understand the subject that is being discussed.

Obviously false in the case of Jacobson, because his reviewers couldn't understand a half-order-of-magnitude error in his energy calculations. That should lose them their positions and send them back to teaching undergrads, if not bagging groceries.

(I think I've got the formatting trick figured out; write in HTML, post in "Basic", click "Source", paste over the mangled HTML with the original HTML, go back and check that it all came out right. Takes a few go-rounds before it all makes sense.)

Moderator Response:

[RH] Please go back and re-read commenting policies.

Engineer-Poet at 11:26 AM on 30 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @8:

You say “Um, you mean heat? Why wouldn't you just call it heat?” No, Abbott means entropy. You obviously did not take college chemistry or physics. Heat and energy are similar. Entropy is complicated but for this discussion it is similar to randomness.

I know I'm coming very late to this discussion, but I do happen to have a bunch of physics, chemistry AND thermodynamics under my belt. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the first poster in this thread to have done a detailed analysis of a steam-cycle power plant as well as picking apart the thermochemistry of the reforming of methane and solid carbon to syngas (I got partway to a patent on that, I took a refund from Harness, Dickey and Pierce on the patent work because I delayed too long and the SOTA got ahead of me). Coincidentally, I have not only done my best to explain entropy to the ignorant, I wrote a blues about it in the early years of this century. I can not only summarize the science, I can make it humorous too. That's more than you can do; at your best, you come across as a scold.

In the scenario you describe the water coming in contact with the extremely hot salt would instantly cause a steam explosion that would destroy the facility.

Hogwash. In a molten salt reactor, the steam generator would be fed from a secondary salt loop and likely be sited outside the containment. In the case of the Elysium concept, water never ENTERS the containment; superheated steam is used to boil the feedwater to saturation, and only steam enters the containment (enters saturated, leaves superheated). This is one of the more elegant solutions to the various issues that I've ever seen; Ed Pheill has my admiration.

In the explosion a lot of hydrogen gas would be generated from the highly reducing salt solution.

You're full of crap; the salts are fully oxidized. Metallic sodium would generate hydrogen in mixture with steam, but chloride and fluoride salts cannot.

Abbott describes how many reactors would need to be built to illustrate the size of the problem.

Abbott overstates the number of reactors by a factor of 3. He makes errors which would fail a high-school physics exam, and his reviewers weren't competent enough to catch them. This disqualifies all of them; their institutions should revoke their degrees, and should be publicly shamed for having granted them.

For myself, I would prefer that reactors were made safer and not cheaper.

Nuclear reactors are orders of magnitude safer than any other source of electric power on the planet. I want them cheaper, because I want them to replace all the generation that's more dangerous. If that requires accepting a bit more danger from nuclear energy, it's still better than the alternatives.

Moderator Response:

[RH] Please tone it down if you want to continue to comment here.

Engineer-Poet at 12:25 PM on 28 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Excuse me, I fixed the formatting on the last one. (It's a lot more difficult than just pasting the correct HTML, though I'm beginning to figure out the quirks of the system here.) Can I get a break?

I'll be happy to repost the previous stuff with the formatting fixed, so long as you're willing to cut me a little slack while I figure things out.

Moderator Response:

[PS] A careful read of the comments policy is required to have posts accepted here. In particular, ensure that assertions are backed by links to reputably sources (eg and especially, peer reviewed literature). This is not a suitable forum for exchanges of opinion, but references to new information are appreciated. Peer-reviewed responses to Abbott in particular would be welcome.

[BL]. Don't paste html in the main edit box. Paste plain text and format using the tools provided.The "Source" tab can give more direct html control if needed.

...and read the Comments policy. There is always a link to it directly above the box you use to add a comment.

MA Rodger at 06:51 AM on 28 July 2021

It's Urban Heat Island effect

blaisct @62,

Perhaps repeating some of the criticism @64:-

You say "The IPCC seems to give man-made albedo changes low significance because it is hard to measure and hard to detect change." But difficulty does not appear to be something to dampen your enthusiasm.

Do note that 0.04 albedo is far too low and, while potentially applicable to a sky-pointing piece of asphalt, is not applicable to urban areas. Also note that clouds float above cities forests and oceans alike and they contribute some 75% of the planet's albedo. And also note that the sun sets every evening and never rises to be overhead except at noon in the tropics. You need to divide the tropical noon-day value by four to satisfy the very simple geometry of spheres.

radiation budget diagram

The solar radiation actually reflected spacewards by the Earth's surface is shown in the diagram at 23Wm^-2. If by 2100AD, the planet's urban spread were somehow to reach over 0.7% of the planet's surface area (as the most extreme projection in the graphic @60 suggests is possible) and even if that 0.7% had an albedo of zero, that 23Wm^-2 would only reduce by [23 x 0.007 =] 0.16Wm^-2 which, despite the use of the most exaggerating numbers, is significantly smaller (x10 smaller) for 2100AD than the value you arrive at for today's value. Using more realistic numbers would return an insignificant result (x100 smaller).

Bob Loblaw at 06:45 AM on 28 July 2021

It's Urban Heat Island effect

Blaisct @ 62.

As Rob Honeycutt says, there is something clearly amiss in your calculations. Let me point out the obvious ones.

1. You do not cite a sources for your urban albedo of 0.04. Wikipedia lists 0.04 as a value typical for fresh asphalt. Most urban areas are not fresh asphalt. I have a well-worn copy of Tim Oke's Boundary Layer Climates, where he lists typical urban surafaces as follows (p 281):

Asphalt 0.04 to 0.20
Concrete 0.10 to 0.35
Brick 0.20 to 0.40
Roofing materials (various) 0.08 to 0.35

Your estimate of urban albedo is way too low.

Typical natural land surfaces (Ok.e op cit, p 12)

Soils (wet to dry) 0.05 to 0.40
Deserts 0.20 to 0.45
Grass 0.16 to 0.26
Crop land 0.18 to 0.25
Forests 0.05 to 0.20

You need to consider just what urban material is replacing what natural material. Then you can estimate a change in albedo. Most urban landscapes are not that different from natural ones.

4. Global albedo is not just a surface albedo. You need to factor in cloud cover. For a global cloud cover of 50%, only half the surface is seen from space - and surface albedo changes only have half the effect you get when you ingore cloud cover. You'd need to know the cloud cover over the urban areas you are doing calculations for.

Your estimate of the contribution of urban surface albedo is an over-estimate. A serious over-estimate.

7 through 13. Urban area is not proportional to population. Haven't you ever noticed how much more closely packed people are in cities, compared to rural areas? Population density is not uniform. Oke (op cit, p291) notes that the urban heat island effect tends to be proportional to the log of population, not linear. You are seriously over-estimating the amount of global albedo change in relation to urban population growth.

14 and 15. The 1367 W/m^2 figure is for a measurement perpendicular to the sun's rays, in full sun. To compare to CO2 and other forcings, you need to divide by four, as the CO2 forcing is calculated for the entire globe, perpendicular to the earth's surface - not the sunlit side perpendicular to the sun's rays.

You are over-estimating the effect by a factor of 4.

16. As you have the wrong forcing in W/m^2, you are getting the wrong temperature rise.

17. Essentially, garbage in, garbage out.

Real scientists have been doing this the right way for decades. Try this one from way back in 1979:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/206/4425/1363.abstract

Engineer-Poet at 06:04 AM on 28 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @29:

Higher prices for nuclear are not generally considered a positive trait. In the USA we prefer lower prices.

So why do you prefer policies which increase the price of GHG-free nuclear energy? Be specific.

Moderator Response:

[BL] Also deleted.

Engineer-Poet at 06:03 AM on 28 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @14:

I have provided two examples of hafnium use in civilian reactors so you have shifted the goalposts. We do not know how much hafnium is used in civilian reactors because you have provided no references to show its use is limited.

If you wish to argue that enough enough metals exist for reactors you must provide a peer reviewed report that details all the metals used in nuclear plants and shows they exist.

You are also confused about citations. Scientific papers are written for peope who have done their homework and understand the subject that is being discussed.

Moderator Response:

[BL] More badly-formatted text deleted.

Engineer-Poet at 06:01 AM on 28 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @8:

You say “Um, you mean heat? Why wouldn't you just call it heat?” No, Abbott means entropy. You obviously did not take college chemistry or physics. Heat and energy are similar. Entropy is complicated but for this discussion it is similar to randomness.

Coincidentally, I have not only done my best to explain entropy to the ignorant, I wrote a blues about it in the early years of this century. I can not only summarize the science, I can make it humorous too. That's more than you can do; at your best, you come across as a scold.

In the scenario you describe the water coming in contact with the extremely hot salt would instantly cause a steam explosion that would destroy the facility.

In the explosion a lot of hydrogen gas would be generated from the highly reducing salt solution.

You're full of crap; the salts are fully oxidized. Metallic sodium would generate hydrogen in mixture with steam, but chloride and fluoride salts cannot.

Abbott describes how many reactors would need to be built to illustrate the size of the problem.

For myself, I would prefer that reactors were made safer and not cheaper.

Moderator Response:

[BL] Once you learn to properly format code, we will consider letting you continue in this discussion.

Engineer-Poet at 05:58 AM on 28 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @8:

You say “Um, you mean heat? Why wouldn't you just call it heat?” No, Abbott means entropy. You obviously did not take college chemistry or physics. Heat and energy are similar. Entropy is complicated but for this discussion it is similar to randomness.

In the scenario you describe the water coming in contact with the extremely hot salt would instantly cause a steam explosion that would destroy the facility.

In the explosion a lot of hydrogen gas would be generated from the highly reducing salt solution.

You're full of crap; the salts are fully oxidized. Metallic sodium would generate hydrogen in mixture with steam, but chloride and fluoride salts cannot.

Abbott describes how many reactors would need to be built to illustrate the size of the problem.

For myself, I would prefer that reactors were made safer and not cheaper.

(No preview, SS? Come on, get with it! That's been a standard feature at serious sites since the 90's!)

Moderator Response:

[BL] You are off to a bad start at this web site. Pasting badly-formatted html into comments will be subject to immediate deletion. Complaining about the web software will always be off-topic.

Warning #1

Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

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

Rob Honeycutt at 04:50 AM on 28 July 2021

It's Urban Heat Island effect

blaisct... Something is clearly amiss in your calculation since we can quite clearly see that most of the warming is not occurring in urban areas. Most of the warming is occurring in the Arctic, which is consistent with predictions made a century ago.

blaisct at 03:59 AM on 28 July 2021

It's Urban Heat Island effect

Thanks MA Rodger, my fault, I used the % (3%) of the earth land mass that was urban instead of the % of the total earth that was urban. The number from your graph of 0.7% urban (of the total earth area) seems to agree with other published information. I assume the heat from the “heat island” effect would be well mixed around the earth and become part of the total measurement of climate change. I present the following to check out the significance of the 0.7%.
1. The reported albedo of urban areas is about 0.04. (Albedo on a 0.0 to 1.0 scale)
2. The reported total albedo of the earth is about 0.31. (Assume that includes clouds and urban albedo)
3. The non-urban area of the earth is: 100%-0.7%= 99.3%
4. The contribution of urban areas to the total albedo is: 0.04 * 0.7% = 0.00028
5. The total non-urban area albedo contribution to the total is: (0.31-0.00028)/ 0.993 = 0.31190
6. Assume the non-urban area albedo in the 1880 era was the same as today: =0.31190
7. Current earth population is about = 7.8 B
8. 1880 era population is about =1.3 B (Using 1880 as the approximate start of IPCC temp data)
9. Assume the 1880 era urban area was proportional to population: = 1.3/7.6*0.7% = 0.12%
10. The 1880 era urban area contribution to total albedo was: 0.04*0.12% = 0.000047
11. The 1880 era non-urban area contribution to the total albedo was: (1- 0.12%)*0.3119 = 0.31154
12. The 1880 era total albedo estimate is: 0.311538+ 0.000047 = 0.311585
13. The difference in 1880 vs 2021 albedo is : 0.311585 – 0.31 = 0.001585 (or about 0.16% albedo change)
14. The reported out put of the sun reaching the earth is about: 1367 W/m^2
15. Therefore, this albedo difference is: 0.001585* 1367 = 2.1680W/m^2
16. I have seen conversion factors for converting this to ‘C in earth temperature rise of 0.5 to 0.7 ‘C/W/m^2. I’ll use the 0.5.
17. The equivalent earth temperature rise of the above albedo change from 1880 to now is: 2.168*.5 = 1.08’C

The IPCC reported temperature rise over the 1880 to now is about 1.0’C. This calculation implies that a 0.7% urban area could account for all of that temperature rise. I know this is over simplified, and was only done to find out the significance of small changes in a higher heat source ( over 4X lower albedo in urban areas vs the earth as a whole) on the earth surface. Other factors in albedo change should also be included: roads, forest fires land area, sea ice melting, land ice melting, rain forest destruction, and farming practices. I can only guess that including these albedo changes in the above would increase the man-made albedo global warming calculation.
The IPCC seems to give man-made albedo changes low significance because it is hard to measure and hard to detect change. Population change and even atmospheric CO2 change should also be an indicator of historical man-made albedo change, just need a reference point.

michael sweet at 03:28 AM on 27 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

John ONiel:

A peer reviewed study, published in 2020, said:

"Reliable mechanical valves that can withstand the corrosive and high-temperature conditions in Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) have not yet been demonstrated. In their place, freeze valves (sometimes called freeze plugs) represent a unique nuclear design solution for isolating salt flow during operations." my emphasis.

Your reply is "Freeze valves are actually very simple". Apparently we do not need to verify that freeze valves work before we build these new nuclear designs. I think most reasonable people would disagree. Valves do not exist for MSR designs.

Watchng your Youtube advertisement, the company produces valves made out of stainless steel. The paper linked above states clearly that no known materials can withstand the extreme conditions inside an MSR for the lifetime of a reactor. Obviously, stainless steel would have been one of the first materials tested. The valves you cite are only for short, experimental usage and are not exposed to the extreme hot, radioactive and corrosive environment for any significant amount of time. These are not valves that can be actually used in a nuclear reactor. They are valves used in test equipment to evaluate possible future valves once a supply of "unobtainium" is found.

It is a waste of time to discuss speculative possible solutions to problems that are known to exist. Obviously, you have no idea how possible valves can be built for MSR's since your reference is for a completely different use and you did not recognize that. Suggesting that freeze valves are so simple that they do not need to be tested is absurd. Freeze valves open and close too slowly to help in an emergency. Engineers in the 1950's rejected their use.

Your suggestion that repairing pipes in a shut-down, cold, non-radioactive system is comparable to active regulation of a nuclear reactor core demonstrates that you do not care if the reactor you propose to build has been safely designed and tested.

The entire discussion is premature since no proposed reactor design exists, only speculative rough proposals. Come back to discuss MSR's when they have a buildable design.

hat tip to Philippe Chantreau for producing the peer revidewed article about freeze valves.

John ONeill at 14:48 PM on 26 July 2021

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

From 228, Michael Sweet

'Freeze valves are apparently not used in any existing chemical or nuclear processes. Therefore the knowledge of their manufacture, use and failure modes is rudimentary. They are complicated and have many failure modes compared to normal mechanical valves. They open and close very slowly in emergencies. The size of pipes used is restricted. Test valves have suffered catastrophic failure.'

Freeze valves are actually very simple - a short length of flattened pipe with fins on the outside, with a fan blowing air over it. Failure can hardly be 'catastrophic', because there's a very wide margin between the normal operating temperature of the molten salt, and that high enough to melt the metal holding it. If the metal is hot enough to melt, so is the salt in the freeze plug. If the reactor is not operating, there is no power going to the coolant fan. ( The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, back in the 1970s, didn't make any power, so they used sensors and manual controls instead.) What's more, they are easy to test using non-radioactive versions of the salt, which are chemically identical but easier to handle. (Depleted uranium has very low radioactivity, and plutonium, usually a minor fraction of a thermal reactor's salt composition, can be substituted with cerium.) Failing open would shut the reactor down, which might be bad for the owner's financial return, but not really a safety concern.

In fact, 'freeze valves' are widely used when working on power systems using water circuits, including nuclear ones - if a valve, pipe or pump needs maintenance, the pipe either side of it can be frozen and then cut, and the work done without having to drain the whole system. An MSR freeze valve is designed to drain the whole system, so there's very little to go wrong - they're 'fail safe'.

In any case, valves of any sort are not a prerequisite for MSRs. One alternative is to have the salt level actively kept up by the main fuel pump. If the pump stops, the salt drains to a tank where fission cannot occur because of the geometry. Another is to surround the reactor with a salt with a higher melting point. If the reactor exceeds a predetermined temperature, fission will stop from fuel expansion and doppler broadening of the neutron absorption spectrum, and the surrounding salt will suck up the excess heat by change of state. Rupture disks are another option if there is any danger of overpressure.

Finally, these guys - Copenhagen Atomics - are building and testing mechanical valves, among other components, and selling them to anyone else working in the field -2 minutes in to the video if you want to check my veracity in a hurry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7U7I7QkttM&ab_channel=gordonmcdowell

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.

Bob Loblaw at 23:41 PM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Yet another aspect of Ingrahammark7's failure is to only think in terms of the radiation that starts its upward travel at the surface and ends its travel at the top of the atmosphere, in one single passage.

In reality, IR radiation emitted at the surface will undergo several absorption/re-emission cycles, and increasing CO2 will shorten the distance for each cycle - which means more cycles. Each re-emission also sends some energy back down (well, half), which further reduces the efficiency. Even if one sees very little difference at the end (direct IR transmission to space, after surface emission), there is a lot fo difference in the middle. And given that the entire atmospheric profile plays a role, along with other energy transfers such as convection, what happens in the middle is important.

As Phillippe points out, Ingrahammark7's comments are yet another case of reinventing the flat tire. I pointed out the problems of this particular flat tire in comment #529. In that comment, I provided the followiing diagram showing the intermediate effects on IR transmission of decreased atmospheric transparency.

Even though both transmission coefficients result it essentially nothing making it through 200 layers, the differences in the first 100 are obvious.

There's that "obvious" word, yet again...

MA Rodger at 20:38 PM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Philippe Chantreau @608,

I'm not too sure that fig 5 from Clough & Iacono (1995) is particularly useful at "Chart(ing) the incremental temperature insulation from different thicknesses of co2." as Ingrahammark7 @599 requests.

Looking back @381, I note within-thread much use of output from Chicago Uni's MODTRAN. Running that model for the planet with only CO2 as a GHG for different ppm yields the following reductions in OLR for (as Ingrahammark7 puts it) "different thicknesses of co2" with no sign that "a doubling does nothing."

0ppm(v) ... ... ... ... 0 Wm^-2
0.375ppm(v)... ... 3.45 Wm^-2
0.75ppm(v) ... ... 5.02 Wm^-2
1.5ppm(v) . ... ... 7.22 Wm^-2
3ppm(v) .. ... ... 10.05 Wm^-2
6ppm(v) .. ... ... 13.19 Wm^-2
12ppm(v) . ... ... 16.64 Wm^-2
25ppm(v) . ... ... 20.41 Wm^-2
50ppm(v) . ... ... 24.18 Wm^-2
100ppm(v)... ... 27.63 Wm^-2
150ppm(v)... ... 29.83 Wm^-2
200ppm(v)... ... 31.40 Wm^-2
250ppm(v)... ... 32.34 Wm^-2
300ppm(v)... ... 33.28 Wm^-2
350ppm(v)... ... 34.23 Wm^-2
400ppm(v)... ... 34.85 Wm^-2
450ppm(v)... ... 35.48 Wm^-2
500ppm(v)... ... 36.11 Wm^-2
550ppm(v)... ... 36.74 Wm^-2

Philippe Chantreau at 11:07 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Ingrahammark7's: "Chart the incremental temperature insulation from different thicknesses of co2" is a little cryptic a question but it seems that the Iacono & Clough 95 paper would answer that, to an extent, I think (hard to tell, the language is a little puzzling). The Iacono & Clough graph is featured in post #381 of this thread by Tom Curtis.

This following statement, to me, is not making enough sense to try to answer: "You chart should be utterly absurd because you have to explain why the first few co2 cause the entire effect and once you get to hundreds or thousands of feet which exist a doubling does nothing."

Rob Honeycutt at 11:00 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

My question for Ingrahammark7 is, given that what is being explained here is science that's been well accepted for over a century, what makes you think that somehow the world's leading scientists don't understand something that, as you put it, would be obvious to a small child?

I find that to be a rather ridiculous position to put forth.

Bob Loblaw at 10:33 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

MAR:

Possibly, but Ingrahammark7's statement also resembles the kind of thing you'd hear from the group that think there is absolutely no greenhouse effect, no backradiation, violates the 2nd, law, etc., and pressure is the only factor.

Ingrahammark7's understanding of basic physics hasn't been very good so far.

Philippe Chantreau at 10:33 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

As DB said years ago, this is not quite like reinventing the wheel but rather reinventing the flat tire..

MA Rodger at 06:34 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw @602,

I think the comment from Ingragammark7 @600 that "The temperature gradient in the atmosphere is determined by pressure." is not actually away with the faries as I see it as a less-than-precise description of the Lapse Rate being close to adiabatic, thus atmospheric pressure & temperature are strongly linked. It is the statement following that quote from #600 "The greenhouse effect would break this relationship and raise temperatures at lower altitudes where diminishing returns is less." that makes no sense to me.

Bob Loblaw at 06:21 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Oops. I dropped a factor of 1000 when I first made the image in comment #601. I have corrected the image.

Bob Loblaw at 04:59 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

In #600, Ingrahammark7 says "The temperature gradient in the atmosphere is determined by pressure."

Oh, my, you're in that group of alternate physics. I suspect there is no hope for you.

You may wish to continue alternative explanations of the atmospheric temperature gradient on this thread. Please actually read the post before you start commenting, though. I doubt you have any new arguments to make.

https://skepticalscience.com/postma-disproved-the-greenhouse-effect.htm

Bob Loblaw at 04:53 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Oh, my, Ingrahammark7. You certainly are persistent in your misunderstandings.

You said in #599: "This does not take any math, or diagrams, if insulation worked in a linear way then it would lead to absurd outcomes and everyone would already be dead."

Well, your diagram linked to in #596 must have taken some math, so let's see if we can reproduce it. (And remember that "linear" statement - we'll test it later on.) First, I wll establish some assumptions:

We'll work with a wall that is 1000 m² in area
We'll assume that the wall material has a thermal conductivity of 1 W/mK
We'll assume that we want to maintain a temperature difference (inside - outside) of 1C (or 1K, whichever you prefer).

What amount of heating is required to maintain that temperature difference for different wall thickness?

The equation we want is

(heat input/area) = (conductivity * temperature difference)/(wall thickness)

At 1m thickness, we need 1000W (or 1 W/m² of wall area).

We can graph the heat required as a function of wall width and get this:

Thermostat-controlled wall thickness

So, here we can see the "diminishing returns" that Ingrahammark7 thinks proves the CO2 effect is saturated.

Let's look at our wall thickness calculations slightly differently. As MA Rodger points out in #598, buildings have thermostats. In a building,we want to know how much heat it takes to maintain a certain temperature or amount of warming, as in the above diagram (and the one that Ingrahammark7 chose to display).

...but that is not what is happening in the earth-atmopshere system. We have a slightly different set of conditions:

A constant rate of heating
A temperature rise that varies depending on the "insulating effect"

How does our building behave in similar conditions? We will work with a matching set of assumptions:

A wall that is 1000 m² in area
The wall material has a thermal conductivity of 1 W/mK
...but instead of a constant temperature difference controlled by a thermostat, we have a constant heat input of 1000W.

Now, our temperature difference needs to be calculated. We rearrange the above questions, and get:

temperature difference = (heat input/area) * ((wall thickness/conductivity)

What does our graph look like when we plot temperature difference against wall thickness?

Blanket_cosntant_temperature

...and Ingrahammark7's "diminishing returns" go *poof*. The temperature difference is a linear function of wall thickness for constant heat input. It turns out that unless you turn the heat down, adding too many blankets will kill you. (And the linearity is obvious from the equation.)

So, Ingrahammark7's "obvious" argument is obviously wrong.

Ingrahammark7 at 03:57 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

"Also, the temperature gradient up through the atmosphere is not determined by CO2." In case you were expecting a response to this- that statement is unrelated to the discussion but it nonethless further refutes your point. The temperature gradient in the atmosphere is determined by pressure. The greenhouse effect would break this relationship and raise temperatures at lower altitudes where diminishing returns is less.

Ingrahammark7 at 02:42 AM on 25 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic, the second diagram is incoherent, if you think adding to a five mile blanket adds any insulation then then there is something wrong. This does not take any math, or diagrams, if insulation worked in a linear way then it would lead to absurd outcomes and everyone would already be dead.

"Add too many blankets and the occupant will die of hyperthermia" this is what I want you to see demonstrate in real life. You are not going to arbitrarily raise heat by adding blankets. Insulation only raises temperature a few degrees in the first few inches and after that is negligible.

Here is my request, since the graph I provide would just show the same as I already gave. Chart the incremental temperature insulation from different thicknesses of co2. Whether you call It insulation or something else is irrelevant. You chart should be utterly absurd because you have to explain why the first few co2 cause the entire effect and once you get to hundreds or thousands of feet which exist a doubling does nothing.

HK at 23:57 PM on 24 July 2021

It's Urban Heat Island effect

Here's the rate of warming per century since 1960 at some Berkeley Earth reference points.

50 km north-west of New York City:
+ 2.86°C
North-western Maine:
+ 2.90°C
Close to Barrow in northern Alaska:
+ 4.79°C
170 km north-west of Yellowknife, northern Canada:
+ 4.60°C
Northern Finland:
+ 3.03°C
Franz Josef Land, north-east of Svalbard:
+ 5.63°C
Central Kazakhstan:
+ 2.55°C
Close to Yakutsk in eastern Siberia:
+ 4.15°C

What happened to the urban heat island effect?

MA Rodger at 22:51 PM on 24 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Ingrahammark7 @595/596,

While it is correct that conductive insulation is dependent on the temperature gradient through the insulation and the less the gradient, the less the heat loss, the OP above makes clear the mechnism of CO2 insulation does not work in that manner. So only a badly taught "small child" would hold the views you suggest.

We are not taking blankets where an additional blanket will diminish the outward energy flow by stretching the distance between inside and outside temperatures and thus reducing the temperature gradient within the insulative blankets. The level of radiative energy flying about the atmosphere is not diminished by adding extra CO2. Also, the temperature gradient up through the atmosphere is not determined by CO2. The workings of the greenhouse effect is explained by the OP in its Basic/Intermediate/Advanced versions.

Mind, your logic about R-values and blankets is also in error. The logic of the R-value is used to assess the insulation of buildings. It is useful because buildings have thermostats. The planet Earth has no thermostat (other than CO2 levels). And there is no thermostat in a bed. Add too many blankets and the occupant will die of hyperthermia.

Eclectic at 22:46 PM on 24 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Ingrahammark7 @ 595 / 596 :

You have missed the mark - by a mile.

What a pity you did not read the Original Post. And in particular, have a think about the second diagram there.

Ingraham . . . how can you educate yourself, if you don't read?

( Hint: the atmosphere is a gas, not a wool blanket. )

Ingrahammark7 at 19:14 PM on 24 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

Diminishing returns on insulation

Ingrahammark7 at 19:11 PM on 24 July 2021

CO2 effect is saturated

The co2 saturation is obvious, it's the difference between wearing five feet of blankets and five miles. Insulation is proportional to 1/thickness^2 so obviously anything beyond the first few feet of the hundreds of meters of co2 in the air is irrelevant.
This is obvious to a small child so the global warming advocates are just not beleving what they are saying.

prove we are smart at 10:21 AM on 24 July 2021

As scientists have long predicted, warming is making heatwaves more deadly

Taken from Wiki: "Mass maintains a popular weblog in which he posts regular articles on meteorology, Pacific Northwest weather history, and the impacts of climate change[8] written for the general public. According to Mass, "Global warming is an extraordinarily serious issue, and scientists have a key role to play in communicating what is known and what is not about this critical issue.[9]"

Mass has stated publicly that he shares the scientific consensus that global warming is real and that human activity is a major cause of warming trend in the late 20th and 21st centuries.[10][11] He has been critical of the Paris Climate accord for not going far enough to address the negative impacts of climate change.[12]

However, Mass is frequently critical of and has expressed concern that when media and environmental organizations make exaggerated claims about the current impacts of climate change, or cite climate change as the cause of specific weather events. He is concerned about misinforming the public about a key societal issue, distracting public and governmental attention from more immediate environmental concerns, and stifling opportunities for effective bipartisan policy-making to slow climate change and mitigate its effects.[13][14][15][16]

His statements on the severity and progression of anthropogenic global warming have elicited condemnation from The Stranger[17] as well as members of activist environmental organizations[18] due to concerns that Mass's scientific approach to understanding and communicating the risks associated with global warming could result in public apathy or be used by climate change deniers to bolster their claims."

I think Professor Mass is just typical of climate scientists giving responses to their perceived inaccuracies in the increasing climate craziness reporting. What is different with this professor is he is more of a "personality". Possibly the second link from 2.Bob Loblaw at 22:18 PM on 21 July, 2021 disproves Mass' theory but the science though was beyond my understanding.

The back and forth exchange between scientists peer reviewing "science" is what keeps us up to date and reliably informed. The fact Climate Change deniers can cherry pick a "headline" will never change. I don't know whether to feel hopeful or nor when I read this either,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1rxv1yPQrc

sfkeppler at 02:24 AM on 23 July 2021

As scientists have long predicted, warming is making heatwaves more deadly

Scientists rarely question the fact of Climate Change. The question is why climate is changing, and the fellows of the carbon theory won the pot, contaminating every climate discussion with their "Bad Humanity" idea. And actually, all people solely think about CO2 and Greenhouse gas emission. No other idea has permission to be pronounced. Other opinions are judged as non-scientific and are demoralized. At the same time, people forget to think about the greenhouse effect of water, the most abundant substance on earth. It is the fact, that water cools the earth’s surface by evapotranspiration by making possible all living conditions in the biosphere. Even if carbon plays its role in global warming, the water’s cooling effect is much important for immediate corrective action, by massive reforestation in the tropics.
The tropics distribute their energy by convection of water-vapor and cool the hemispheres by precipitation and washing out of carbon dioxide. Therefore, we should intensify research on the global hydrological cycle and stop immediately all deforestation in the tropics. Especially the Mangroves should be preserved, as we perceive looking to Somalia and the consequences of its prehistorical extinction. We argue that even the expansion of the Sahara desert is a consequence of deforestation an the western shore of the Red Sea.

Moderator Response:

[DB] As constituted, your comment is a Gish Gallop of unrelated and uncogent claims. Please first read the Newcomers, Start Here page and then the History of Climate Science and the Big Picture pages before commenting further. If you still have concerns needing answers at that point, use the Search function in the Upper Left corner of any page here and place those concerns formatted as questions on the most appropriate page. Thanks!

michael sweet at 01:21 AM on 23 July 2021

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

An article in the Guardian today talked about how people moved to the Pacific Northwest in the USA because it is cool and was perceived as a refuge from climate change. The recent heat wave scorched the area and people are changing their thinking. The article ended with this quote from a local resident:

"“To me, it is climate change in action. I don’t really want to move away but I don’t want to live here and cut short my life either [from breathing all the smoke]. That’s something we are struggling with. The question is, though – where would we go to?” my emphasis.

MA Rodger at 22:15 PM on 22 July 2021

It's Urban Heat Island effect

blaisct @59,

You say:-

"When urban areas of the earth were small (less than 1%) the “heat island” effect was probably insignificant. Now that the urban area is over 3% of the earth’s surface an area correction is needed."

The area of urban development is (according to Gao & O’Neill (2020) 'Mapping global urban land for the 21st century with data-driven simulations and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways' ) still well below 1% of global area at 0.6 million sq km in 2000 or 0.12% and, while growing, will remain below 1% by 2100 even with the highest of projections which show a rise to 0.7%. The Fig 1 of that paper is pasted below.

This then suggests "the “heat island” effect is and will remain probably insignificant." and thus no "correction is needed."

Global Area of Urban Development projectios

John Hartz at 05:02 AM on 22 July 2021

As scientists have long predicted, warming is making heatwaves more deadly

Recommended supplementary reading:

Scientists are worried by how fast the climate crisis has amplified extreme weather by Angela Dewan, CNN, July 20, 2021

An exceprt from the article:

"Climate scientists have for decades warned that the climate crisis would lead to more extreme weather. They said it would be deadly and it would be more frequent. But many are expressing surprise that heat and rain records are being broken by such large margins.

Since the 1970s, scientists have predicted the extent to which the world would warm fairly accurately. What's harder for their models to predict — even as computers get more and more powerful — is how intense the impact will be."

A number of prominent climate scientists were interviewed for the article and are extensively quoted.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/20/world/climate-change-extreme-weather-speed-cmd-intl/index.html

blaisct at 02:23 AM on 22 July 2021

It's Urban Heat Island effect

Should we be looking at the surface area of the earth these differences in trends represents? These graphs would better be related to climate change if they included some correction for urban area change. Over time this urban area may be increasing (and suburban area decreasing) thus the total heat into the atmosphere is also increasing proportional to that area change. I expect that including urban area increase due to population would show a significant increase in total heat going into the atmosphere over time vs the suburban areas. When urban areas of the earth were small (less than 1%) the “heat island” effect was probably insignificant. Now that the urban area is over 3% of the earth’s surface an area correction is needed. There may also be some differences in the albedo of cities due to construction practices and population density.

Moderator Response:

[BL] Land use changes such as albedo are a regular part of the IPCC reporting. You can look through their reports to assess the effect of known changes.

https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/

You have posted a lot of speculation (maybe this, maybe that) without supporting evidence. In particular, what is the source of your claim that the urban area has changed by the amount you claim?

Meaningless speculation without supporiting information is not productive.

Bob Loblaw at 22:18 PM on 21 July 2021

As scientists have long predicted, warming is making heatwaves more deadly

Although his blog post does not refer directly to Clifford Mass, Tamino (who has participated in the discussion of this at RealClimate, has posted an analysis of the heat wave:

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2021/07/16/northwest-heat-wave/

shoyemore at 17:01 PM on 21 July 2021

As scientists have long predicted, warming is making heatwaves more deadly

This blogpost by Clifford Mass of UoW has already attracted a lot of adverse comment on Real Climate, and elsewhere.

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-cause-of-great.html

Though more than one error has been pointed out e.g. Mass claiming no trend for increasing temperature records in the Pacific NW, when there clearly is a trend in the chart he shows, he has not modified the post in any way.

It is a dispiriting reminder that some scientists are still lending their credibility to climate change denial, whatever their intentions. I found mass being cited by the "uninformed" as an excuse for inaction.

A more detailed refutation of Mass' post may be in order.

Moderator Response:

Jds at 04:50 AM on 21 July 2021

The number of lives that clean energy could save, by U.S. state

Data graphs... Interesting... Fact sheets, do tell. Article by who? Really. Source links to a group that links it's source information back to itself.

C02 is not a poison until it reaches highly concentrated levels. Rarely happens.

.04% of our atmosphere is c02. .0016% of that .04% is manmade. Multiply the two figures together to get the % of the atmosphere which is manmade c02. That's .000064. If you added .000064% pink panther fiberglass to your outhouse your butt would still be cold in the winter.

Studies reveal!!! What studies? Oh, Yale. University. Must be smart kids there these days. Reading books. Looking at thermometers.

Been researching C02 detectors myself lately. Basic description for the most detailed I shall provide now.

Too housing contains filter mechanism. Bounces Electrons (little buggers) back and forth between electrode plates. Electrolytes (salt water? Potassium? Gatorade?) change c02 to o2 through oxidation (rust) and reduces (evaporates)... get ready far this... oxygen into water. O into H2O. Yup... water into wine as well I suppose. The electrodes are biochemically sensitive to these changes.

I'll have to look this convuluted one up again for further details. It didn't mention any silicone chips nor as usually typical the almighty laser.

Fancy thermometer at best. Get yours free shipping from Walmart for like $30.

You can't even find anyone who wants to admit being the inventor of these snake oil charms nor will you find any original patents. Yet hundreds of mostly fly by night companies sell them for prices up into the thousands.

Shows parts per million.

NASA has these million dollar detectors that shoot lasers from far above to hit the earth surface and I suppose eventually be picked up by some big Gatorade coated hunk of metal which detects out of each of the million parts that exist in the atmosphere... 400 are C02. Further calculations determine that we cased half of this.

Here is an interesting argument. It has been millions of years since the global temperature and C02 levels have been this high and man wasn't even around back then which proves man is the current cause!!! Most unintelligent argument to date. Who caused the high rates back then if we were not around? Wooly mammoth? Hairy hippos? It's like saying your daughter's boyfriend must not have worn a condom the last time they had sex because your great grandmother was pregnant at one time.

Please think before you make pointless arguments.

We humans if all in one spot on a globe shoulder to shoulder would not even be much of a pin point. Combine all of our biggest cities into one megalopolis... a small freckle on the on the face of ma Gaia.

Mother earth has made home for countless creatures... if we were to just add the ones we have yet to discover to the internet... google would overheat and break down from an overload. And yet we still search for even one or to life forms elsewhere.

Mother earth has survived subzero trips to the shore and hot lava baths. She is covered in worm poo and skunk diddle.

And you worry she will die from second hand smoke which has been circulating since the dawn of her birth.

Your numbers are baseless. Your charts disconnected. Your facts biased. Your proofs conjectured. Your projections assumed. Your own researched will lead you down rabbit holes that will have you as well ask questions to determine validity. Give it time and you find... fancy thermometers. People pointing lasers at silicone chips. Digital readings.

There are no valid reputable respectable people in the realm of all of our highest minds who can validate and properly explain the how function of your fancy thermometers. They just assume like you did that the producers knew what they were doing by way of high intelligence and education and not one in the line of them would ever attempt to decide or hoodwink. Nobody dares to question fancy thermometer for fear they will look unintelligent themselves.

And you can take my statements directly to any of our scientists. Then bring those kids to me. I would like to see their heads sink in sullen shame as we review all of the information available in the world about fancy thermometer... and here them admit to it's nonsense.

Nice charts. Splendid graphs.

Pretty fancy thermometers.

Now prove to me that our c02 without one shred of any doubt 100% caused the average number of tsunamis per year to go from 2 to 3.

Show me just one autopsy report stating cause of death was... air pollution.

Show me the beaches where brilliant scientists are dutifully lined up measuring constant instant by instant changing ocean depths and receding shorelines.

Show me that the number of facilities which extract atmospheric data from the air are evenly distributed across the world and not primarily clumped into rural areas. The ratio difference of such facilities between rural and non grows every year in favor of the rural. That in itself makes for apparant temperature anomalies.

Show me where climate summits, committees, activist gatherings and fancy thermometer operators ever saved or even improved the life of even one person. Common sense of a child would tell you if they spent one tenth of the time exploring ways to prepare ourselves for natural disasters that are unavoidable regardless of our activities (you do know such things exist?) they would save many lives. Just one tenth of your focus shifted toward a more fruitful activiy... it is not much to ask.

Show me empirical evidence and precision studies prove that a two degree raise in global temp makes an unstable earth when global temperates rise and fall many multiples of degrees higher and lower within seasons (Siberia holds 100° record differential), months, weeks, days, hours... any increment of time. Regionally two degree shifts happen within seconds... why can you not make a connection to calamity in these instances? Why do you refuse to admit 2° shifts over a century might be a small % normal. bet if I told the right activist that scientists predict an unpredicted ten degree shift in average global temperature within the hour... those activist would fall in panic, run out the back door with their fancy thermometers pass out from the frantic exhaustion of getting their ownselves heated over a common occurrence.

Show me the credentials of each and every root source of every last statistic you have blind faith in. I would like to know if fancy thermometer makers might not be pushing a few numbers. Bet your bank account some are.

Show me how C02 is killing anything currently. Start looking for actual single file individual case examples in the anals of all our history of even one person who passed out from too much carbon dioxide... I'll give you the rest of your life to produce such papers... good luck. Before you can do that I will prove c02 allows for more life to flourish.

Show me a year that has not had both record high and low temperatures. Of course we must remember readings are not evenly dispersed yet and the lasers attached to satellites are yet to be a cover all.

Show me again the ice age many of the scientists from the 70's were warning us about... where is it? Guess that concept was beginning to sell less copies so they had to change the format or big guv who has an interest in people who have a concern the main public is following will stop funding them... seriously I want you to reread that last statement a few times... let it sink in. Think about the implications and how very real they might we'll be.

Show me causation, not correlation. The person did not get a sun tan on a hot day because a coconut dropped on their head that day.

And really a bunch of the information I may come up with is questionable as well. Who knows what's right? They give us estimates, rounded figures, apple orange comparisons. Coming up with pictures of prehistoric creatures bases on fragments of a single jawbone... then tell us approximately how millions of years since jawbone beast roamed earth... somewhere within this multimillion year range... and the temperature at that time was... and their favorite food was... and they squatted when they pooed fluffy spinich like clumps. Really. They know these facts due to the data represented by their Walmart C02 detectors.

Suckers are not born every minute. They develop through passages of time by way of emotional stimulations. They are targeted. Their opinions are advocated, supported and fed so to break down their defenses. Once trust is gained... (after all, fancy thermometer man has my same concerns therefore his concerns are for me personally as well)... they strike.

And you buy... in full... pun intended (aren't most all?).

And I buy as well... in part.

I wish not to find you reGret the weather... the Thunder... the iceBerg. Us grown ups are patiently waiting for your heroes... your people of the year... fan favorites... to grow up yourselves and drop the hatred and blame. Please stop pointing to the minute spinach stains on the teeth of others when immense festering cavities are being ignored.

8% of human c02 production counted is through breathing. So you can't get us to net zero anyway unless you well... kill us. A % of our CO2 production which makes up part of the statistical reports you adhere to... are from farm animals... eating, pooing, breathing... existing. Us meat eaters are trying to be rid of them as well for your satisfaction but only so much can fit on the plate.

Getting to NetZero is impossible. Waste of time anyway.

Proving that the .00005% is the only factor in 2° rise in the last century is harder than proving the chickens furting in a tornado caused more property damage.

Please be useful.

Activism is well intentioned griping. Would you like reward for it? I don't ever think I found any activist of any cause who enriched our environment beyond a sprinkling... especially the griping or as as I like to call the negative activist. Even the great MLK who was a positive activist is predominantly known by his most endearing followers by just four words... "I had a dream" sad how the majority of the world only knows this much of the man. The four words can be attributed to anything. Further research will educate a follower his dream was basically that some day all races will get along... not to insult but many have said same message with less recognition. It was a world wide sprinkling recognized best because of his ability to sell the product of his speech with the decor of his character. Charisma was the salesman. Same for the young swedish girl with face twisting sputtering gripe furiously. If said in a calm sensible tone she would have been ignored. So I see the point of bringing out the personality to sell the product. A 90 yo business owner/salesman friend told me to be successful you must sell the sizzle not the steak...

I will not abide to that when it comes to you and this subject you invested in. Instead I simply ask you...

where's the beef?

Moderator Response:

[RH] Excessive off-topic Gish Gallop.

MA Rodger at 10:29 AM on 20 July 2021

The Albedo Effect and Global Warming

blaisct @14,

You say you are curious about recent NASA satellite data "finding increase heat loss to space." And you correctly add, the forcing due to increased GHGs will restrict "heat loss to space," this resulting in an energy imbalance and planetary warming.

I'm not entirely sure what it is you enquire about, but this NASA web page 'NASA Satellites See Upper Atmosphere Cooling and Contracting Due to Climate Change' does report a measured cooling of the mesosphere from which they inferred "more heat is lost to space" from the mesosphere.

Assuming this to be what prompts your enquiry:-

The mesosphere roughly lies between 60km and 90km above the surface, sitting above the stratosphere. Both these regions of the atmosphere sit above the mechanism which results in global warming. Both these high-up regions of the atmosphere are cooling as would be expected with CO2-induced global warming. CO2 is well-mixed up to about 50km and lower altitude increases will also impact levels above 50km.

The blanket analogy does not properly capture what is going on as an increase in a greenhouse gas like CO2 cools as well as warms due to mechanisms not present in blankets.

The atmosphere radiates to space (indeed radiates anywhere) only via greenhouse gases. The other atmospheric gases do not radiate at the relatively low atmospheric temperatures. If GHGs are added to a bit of atmosphere, there will be more molecules to radiate so radiation flying about. Also the amount of radiation depends on the gas temperature which increases collisions with GHGs and so stimulates more radation.

In the lower troposphere, the level of GHGs is high enough such that the radiation cannot travel far before it encounters another GHG molecule and is reabsorbed by the atmosphere. Down low, none of it gets to space. What is important for global warming is the altitude above which the GHG density becomes low enough to allow emissions to space. As the lower atmosphere becomes cooler with increased altitude and the level of radiation is dependent on temperature, the higher this altitude is, the cooler the atmosphere radiating to space is and the cooler t is the less radiation can reach space. And if you add GHGs, that altitude rises resulting in less space-bound radiation and thus a warming planet.

But go above that critical point above which radiation can reach space and an increase in GHGs means more radiation flying about and more of it being "lost to space." This is why the mesosphere with rising CO2 levels is expected to cool with global warming. (The stratosphereric cooling is a different story again.)

Hope that helps explain that NASA webpage statement "Scientists have long predicted this [mesosphere cooling] effect of human-driven climate change."

scaddenp at 07:28 AM on 20 July 2021

The Albedo Effect and Global Warming

blaisct - first off, this is somewhat offtopic here, and urban heat island effect is entirely off topic. Try posting to thread skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect-intermediate.htmfor such discussions or moderators will remove you post.

As to increased heat loss to space - consider the blanket analogy. The blanket doesnt stop heat loss, but it slows it so person in the bed stays warm. Now, what do you expect to happen to measurement of heat loss through the blanket if you put two people in the bed (or the person has a fever?). More detail on the science can be found in the actual paper which I believe is this one. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL093047

As to whether this contradicts radiative theory, lets see what that paper have to say. Note that EEI is "Earth energy imbalance" - if energy out is less than energy in, then earth heats up.

"The excellent agreement between satellite and in situ trends in EEI obtained in this study demonstrates the benefits of having independent satellite TOA radiation observations and ocean heat content measurements for tracking changes in EEI. That both produce nearly identical results provides confidence that the trend toward an increased EEI reported here is robust, since it is unlikely to be due to artifacts in both observing systems." Ie expected result.

Note too also that IPCC doesnt have theories - it simply reports on the science consensus.

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