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Comments 5251 to 5300:
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Eclectic at 15:14 PM on 3 September 2021CO2 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.
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Amory at 13:40 PM on 3 September 2021CO2 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.
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coolmaster at 10:43 AM on 3 September 2021It'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.
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.
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Moderator Response:[RH] Reduced image size.
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RedBaron at 05:41 AM on 2 September 2021Here’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.
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sfkeppler at 01:09 AM on 2 September 2021Here’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. -
citizenschallenge at 04:13 AM on 1 September 2021Catastrophic Hurricane Ida hits Louisiana with 150 mph winds
Post Port Fourchon images
https://weather.com/photos/news/2021-08-30-hurricane-ida-aerial-photos
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BaerbelW at 03:02 AM on 1 September 2021CO2 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!
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MA Rodger at 19:30 PM on 31 August 2021Why 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.
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Eclectic at 14:59 PM on 31 August 2021Why 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.
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Chuck21005 at 07:28 AM on 31 August 2021Why 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.
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Chuck21005 at 07:07 AM on 31 August 2021It'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.
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jef12506 at 10:41 AM on 29 August 2021Why 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.
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nigelj at 19:27 PM on 28 August 2021Can 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.
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gws at 05:19 AM on 28 August 2021IPCC 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.
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gws at 05:13 AM on 28 August 2021Can 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.
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gws at 05:01 AM on 28 August 2021Can 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 ...
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Bob Loblaw at 00:46 AM on 28 August 2021Skeptical 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.
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plincoln24 at 00:13 AM on 28 August 2021Skeptical 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.
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ubrew12 at 13:21 PM on 27 August 2021IPCC 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.
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Jan van Dalfsen 1 at 01:54 AM on 27 August 2021Can 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?
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:51 AM on 25 August 2021IPCC 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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Eclectic at 00:38 AM on 25 August 2021IPCC reveals how we are changing the climate
Ed Evans @1 :
Don't waste your time dealing with James Taylor and his Heartland crew.
Taylor's climate science is distinctly of the Flat-Earth sort.
And Taylor's only economics interest is : being economical with the truth.
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Ed Evans at 21:12 PM on 24 August 2021IPCC reveals how we are changing the climate
I need to get into the report. And I'd like for someone to come up with web pages linking to what the report actually says. Here's why:
I watched James Taylor from the Heartland Institute comment on "Biden Administration's Climate Change Agenda," Span. He plays a yin and yang call-in game with democrats and republicans, giving each an equal chance to determine our future prospects, at least regarding climate change. He makes alludes to the IPCC report. He needs to be fact-checked in real time. I did not know enough to do so.
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. -
Ed Evans at 20:49 PM on 24 August 2021Volunteer opportunity turned into a big win for SkS and students!
I see that I need to spend more time here because I missed the blog post for help. I would have volunteered. So, here's my email biosafe@aol.com should you need help in the future. If the task is within my reach, I will happy to help. Eddie Evans
Moderator Response:[BL] Email address redacted. As much as we appreciate your desire to help, we don't want your email address harvested by spammers. Your best bet is to use the Contact link buried at the bottom of the web page.
https://skepticalscience.com/contact.php
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gws at 11:49 AM on 24 August 2021The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
To make the point maybe a bit more succinct:
What the terresrial bisophere and the ocean take up each year is driven by atmospheric concentrations of CO2, not annual man-made CO2 emissions. While the latter change dramatically in the SSP1 scenarios, the former do not. Atmospheric CO2 levels drop only slowly as the new equilibria get established over different timescales.
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gws at 11:02 AM on 24 August 2021Key takeaways from the new IPCC report
ilfark2, some of the answers you seek are in sections B4 and B5 of the SPM.
First of all, note that this is a complete hypothetical because we won't stop emitting tomorrow; even a reduction to "net zero" by 2050 (aka within 30 years) is a stretch.
That said, note that the assumption of a linear drop you made @10 is unrealistic. Due to feedbacks in the earth-atmosphere carbon cycle system the drop is exponential as illustrated by the graph under @9, quite slow, and not returning to pre-spike conditions in equilibrium (after some 10s of thousands of years). OTOH, the graph @9 illustrates a spike of 5000 Pg; the actual spike at this point is closer to 1000 Pg. The graph is meant to illustrate a general system behavior, not a real-world scenario.
As atmospheric CO2 concentrations fall slowly after the emissions cease, the climate effect would linger, and as the SPM highlights in section B5, that means several climate parameters (e.g. sea level, ice cover) would remain altered for "centruries to millenia".
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gws at 10:07 AM on 24 August 2021Why the IPCC climate reports are so important
re around 1:40 min: "extremely likely" is actually defined by the IPCC as a 95-100% likelihood, not "95%" as CliamteAdam states.
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gws at 09:34 AM on 24 August 2021Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial
Wonderfully well written, dense in content yet concise and easy to follow. I will make undoubtedly use of this in the future.
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MA Rodger at 05:23 AM on 22 August 2021It's not bad
DPiepgrass @400,
The accounting of deaths due to hot/cold weather is not at all easy. While I have no idea as to the source of the OP statement "deaths attributable to heatwaves are expected to be approximately five times as great as winter deaths prevented," there is a source that puts the 'prevented' total across 49 large US cities at 100/y while projecting "that changes in extreme hot and extreme cold temperatures would result in 9,300 additional premature deaths per year by 2090." So that is approaching a whopping 100-to-1.
But, to repeat, the assessment of the level of death due to hot/cold weather is not a straightforward exercise. If you're curious as to why that would be, see this Jeff Masters web-page (which does mention the numbers yielding that 100-to-1 finding), an account that sets out some of the difficulties.
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BaerbelW at 21:26 PM on 20 August 2021It's not bad
dpiepgrass & Eclectic
If you don't mind, could you please use the Google form linked above in the "Argument feedback" box to provide this feedback on the rebuttal? It's then easier for us to track instead of trying via the comment threads. Thanks!
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Eclectic at 19:20 PM on 20 August 2021It's not bad
DPiepgrass : (to continue)
Allow me to add a little anecdote : On another forum (not nearly so calm, logical and scientific as this one) there is a certain frequent poster who very often states that hospital / coroner / & other studies show that currently cold is a far greater threat to humanity, because cold deaths greatly exceed heat deaths. And as he never fails to mention, his own name is in authorship on one of these studies.
Eventually I found this too tiresome, so I followed his citation(s) . . . and there was some truth to his claims (though limited to data from three small regions). And as I followed, his cited studies referenced other studies, and they in turn led to other studies ~ many of which came to the opposite conclusion i.e. that heat deaths are greater than cold deaths.
I threw my hands in the air, for there were many confounding factors of tropical/non-tropical ; urban/rural ; First World / Third World regions. Not to mention the validity of reportage and sampling.
So, DPiepgrass , we will have to fall back on some armchair speculation on these matters, rather than use scientific precision. Whatever the present-day circumstances, my "bet" would be that a hotter world will increasingly progress to kill more frail elderly living in poverty ( in the Global South, versus the Global North ).
Good luck finding a comfortable armchair plus a Socrates/Aristotle.
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Eclectic at 18:55 PM on 20 August 2021It's not bad
DPiepgrass, (and with my apology for multi-paragraph reply) :
@400 , you ask: What is the source of this claim [which I paraphrase as: that in the future we can expect heatwaves to cause five times as many deaths than the warmer clime would reduce cold-caused deaths].
As you point out, the Basic / Intermediate / Advanced versions of the OP are considerably different. Not different in a contradictory way . . . but different. (Like very condensed versions of non-identical essays.)
In the Basic version, the quantified "five times" is carried along in a single sentence. It gives the impression - at first glance - that "heat deaths" would be five times the "cold deaths". But on closer reading , that is not the actual meaning written ~ as I hope my expansion [in square brackets, above] can convey with more precision.
Worse, the very following sentence tends to imply that a significant portion of these heatwave deaths include an insect-vector disease linkage. Though it does not actually convey that.
It is all too condensed, for it to be capable of a knowledge-full conveying of information. Quite possibly it would be correct ~ yet it is unsupported within the Article.
DPiepgrass , I do not think I can concisely answer the question behind your question. Are/will heat deaths be exceeding cold-caused deaths? Obviously the answer must stretch across a wide spectrum ~ of degrees of climate warming ; of frequencies / extents / and intensities of heat waves ; of regional localities. It would be a very difficult task to scientifically assess the outcomes even in hindsight , let alone in future projection. Speaking for myself, I would not like to touch the task even with a 12.2 meter barge pole.
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DPiepgrass at 12:06 PM on 20 August 2021It's not bad
The Basic Edition of this rebuttal says "deaths attributable to heatwaves are expected to be approximately five times as great as winter deaths prevented" (and oddly, only the Basic version says this).
What is the source of this claim?
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nigelj at 07:26 AM on 20 August 2021Is Western U.S. experiencing a ‘megadrought’?
I was curious what caused these megadrougts in the past, and found this: "Civilization-Collapsing Megadroughts of Medieval Times Could Be in Store for a Warming Earth".
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ilfark2 at 02:39 AM on 20 August 2021The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
thanks very much
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swampfoxh at 16:42 PM on 19 August 2021Is Western U.S. experiencing a ‘megadrought’?
William DeBuys...that pesky speller, sorry
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swampfoxh at 16:25 PM on 19 August 2021Is Western U.S. experiencing a ‘megadrought’?
A shorcut to understanding Western drought cycles can be found in William DeButs book "A Great Aridness", Oxford U., 2011. I think he reminds us that those cycles have been repeating about every 1,000 years since the end of the last ice age. The last "bad one" was around 1050 CE
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MA Rodger at 02:58 AM on 19 August 2021The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
ilfatk2 @4,
I assume you are asking how additional warming will be constrained to keep us under +1.5ºC if we are already at +1.1ºC. Thus what you describe being "as we go back down the CO2 curve over the next 80 years" concerns our reduction in CO2 emissions in coming decades.
The processes that will determine whether we will keep warming under +1.5ºC are detailed and complex but I am assuming you are happy with the idea that when we do at last reduce CO2 enissions to zero, the global temperature rise will effectively stop.
(If you are not entirely clear on the reason for this 'stopping', it is because the "earth system" is not actually absorbing half our emissions. It is absorbing annually a level of CO2 that happens to be equal to roughly half our annual emissions. In rough numbers, we emit into the atmosphere 10Gt(C) per year while the planet sucks 5Gt(C) out of the atmosphere in the year. Very little of this 5Gt(C) 'in the year' is due to our emissions 'in the year'. If we didn't emit any CO2 next year our rough absorption number would only drop by something like 0.3Gt(C) because what is being absorbed is the accumulation of our CO2 emissions thrugh the years.)
So if AGW effectively stops when we achieve zero emissions and 2050, in three decades time, is often given as a lacklustre target date consider the rate of AGW is today running at something like +0.25ºC per decade. So at that rate we would see +0.75ºC additional warming by 2050.
But we hopefully will not be mad enough to run up to 2050 without large cuts running through those three decades 2021-50. So that +0.25ºC/ per decade will drop with successive decades, perhaps halving that post-2021 warming, say +0.20ºC+0.15ºC+0.5ºC=+0.40ºC, and allowing AGW to be restricted to +1.5ºC.
I hope that makes sense of the basics of the situation.
It will require deep cuts and even then note the negative emissions factored-in post-2050 to achieve +1.5ºC.
Sadly I am not entirely convinced that politicians (& I speak here for UK which is where I am) are truly understanding of the deep deep do-do we are facing and why deep deep cuts in emissions are essential and essential quickly. Instead the process seems to be drowning in greenwash.
I note your comment on tipping points and the link to the Lenton biog. My understanding is that the likes of Lenton are calling for the +1.5ºC limit to be taken seriously (as per Lenton et al (2020) 'Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against'). I am not aware of stronger scientific messaging although I would say that +1.5ºC is not without risks and is a level of warming that should be avoided rather than be seen as some target.
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citizenschallenge at 02:08 AM on 19 August 2021Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial
Another excellent summary by Melanie Trecek-King.
All I might add is,
Unidirectional Skepticism, Equals Denial.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:32 AM on 18 August 2021Thinking is Power: The problem with “doing your own research”
I'm not sure the comparison is valid Graydrake. What you are describing is like delving in the cloud feedback litterature and finding a detail that will allow to refine regional forecasts. What is seen in the so-called "doing my own research" crowd when it comes to climate science is more like: "all these scientists have had it wrong but I know where the truth is, look at this YouTube video." Or someone trumpets that there is no GH effect when they clearly have no understanding of the radiative properties of the gases involved.
Medicine is indeed art and science, and there is a big difference between medical practice and medical research. However, you wouldn't give credence to anyone questioning the fact that we are made of cells or that sterile technique must be used to prevent surgical infections.
It is an already well known problem for practitioners that the quantity of new research findings coming out in a constant stream is impossible to keep up with. It would be convenient if there was an IPCC-like body for every specialty, that would synthesize the findings and come up with a "summary for practitioners." There is no such thing, unfortunately, and practitioners who have many patients to manage must rely on practice guidelines established by their specialty's associations and other bodies. These try to keep up but it always takes time to form guidelines, so they appear often years after research has been confirmed.
Doing no harm is the ultimate guiding principle; that often translates into simply doing less, or waiting until there is more scientific evidence. Every medical action or intervention, including diagnostic, carries risks; every medication can have adverse effects. Information obtained from tests and diagnostic procedures is only worth obtaining if it is truly useful and actionable, and the benefits from said action outweighs the risks of both the action and the diagnostic.
It sounds like you're alluding to recent guidelines recommending the use of Metformin outside of the range for which it is approved by the FDA. That may be advisable in some cases but any practitioner faced with that choice must weigh the risks and benefits and make an educated guess of how they will play out for a specific individual. Using a medication off label (i.e. Metformin for someone whose A1C falls below the range of FDA approved use) also carries liability risks for the practitioner. Metformin is not a benign drug. It sounds like you already had a good A1C and low enough blood glucose, what benefit did you obtain from using the medication?
Humans are the ultimate complex system, with a brain that can create therapeutic effects, side effects and even severe adverse effects when given placebos, whether they are placebo drugs or placebo procedures. Devising effective therapies for humans is a constant struggle because of that, and because of the level of refinement that has been attained by medical science. Practitioners also have to contend with people showing all sorts of dysfunctional relations to health and health care: high anxiety, hypocondriacs, Munchausen, and everything in between on the spectrum. You did not expand on your back pain MRI but, from the practitioner's point of view, if there is a well identified cause for it visible on the scan, trying to treat another possible cause is difficult to justify. In fact, practitioners can be questioned by insurance companies and ethics boards if they do that.
The positive outcomes you claim still fall under the "anecdotal" category. Practitioners are obligated to rely on well established evidence before recommending anything to their patients. Of course, we know that's not always the case, and that shooting in the dark can give results, nothing is perfect.
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sfkeppler at 02:35 AM on 18 August 2021Is Western U.S. experiencing a ‘megadrought’?
You should investigate your usual origin of humidity. Isn't it the Amazon? The tremendous destruction of the Amazon hinders water vapor escape to the north and the south, causing drought and fire. A hot evapotranspirating Amazon brings rain and lower temperatures from the higher layers of the troposphere. This year, the Amazon is cool itself and has no energy for maintaining the convectional water-export in the right height.
Moderator Response:[DB] This post is about megadroughts in the western US, not the Amazon. For background on the effects of water vapor in the atmosphere (a feedback to temperature changes, not a driver of them), read both versions of this post and the comments section. Please stay on-topic.
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ilfark2 at 01:54 AM on 18 August 2021The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
Ok, so there's still something I don't get (maybe it's a dumb question and feel free to ignore it).
So at 280 ppm CO2 (and whatever other GHGs at the time), the earth was at a given avg temp. Climbing up to 410 ppm CO2 (plus other GHGs), Anthro forcing brought the temp up at least 1.1 degrees C.
Over 150 years (using 1850 as baseline).
So, as we go back down the CO2 curve over the next 80 years, it seems hard to believe we won't increase the temperature by more than .5 C.
And this assumes the earth system continues to absorb over half of human emissions.
Odd they suggest there is "no tipping points temperature" since there is evidence we might have crossed it already:
https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Timothy_Lenton
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Graydrake at 12:40 PM on 17 August 2021Thinking is Power: The problem with “doing your own research”
I am not a doctor, I have never taken a medical course and I am not a health nut. The following three issues, however, define the reason the concept of this thread is crucially important in creating a better tomorrow.
I read a brief article on an interesting non-invasive cardiac test, but my cardiologist recommended against it because conclusions were not always scientifically viable. I told him, as an engineer, more information never resulted in a worse decision, and we went forward with the test. Following the results, the cardiologist said, “I am not sure why you pressed for this test, but the results have identified a previously unknown condition, and I am going to change your treatment regimen.”
I abandoned one sporting activity after another over 50 years with chronic back problems. I ran across a piriformis muscle treatment in a university journal, and during a particularly painful episode suggested it to my orthopedic physician. He replied, the piriformis is not your problem based on my MRI and test data, but again I persuaded the doctor to perform the treatment. In two days my pain subsided and I have used this treatment successfully multiple times since.
Finally, I have type 2 diabetes. With my stable A1 C and glucose levels, my internist indicated for a couple of years I was not at a level that required medication. A non-scientific article suggested the newest opinion on diabetes management offered medication was now being recommended beneath my AI C and blood glucose levels. I am now taking medication to control blood sugar, a medication that has been around for over two decades.
These events certainly do not intend to detract from the contribution being made by medical science, however, they speak to decisions made by scientists on the continuum from art to science on complex issues. On every complex subject, quality conclusions combine proven science and artful judgment. The quality of the scientist's conclusion on the human body and climate management, it seems, is heavily based on his rational acknowledgment of where his database stands on the continuously moving science/art continuum – 60/40, 80/20, 95/5……… -
MA Rodger at 19:26 PM on 15 August 2021The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
anticorncob6 @1,
The CO2 budgets quickly become very complicated and comparing them takes a little spade-work. Here is my simplistic take on it.
That 2013 Carbon Budget you link to is quite a generous one, even though it is for +2ºC AGW. Its 1,000Gt(C) emissions budget or 3,664Gt(CO2) with an Airborne Fraction of 45% would yield [1,000 x 0.45 / 2.13 + 275ppm=] 486ppm atmospheric CO2 by 2090 (followed by negative emissions). Other Carbon Budgets, for instance the IPCC SR1.5 budget from 2018 set a budget at 432ppm for a 66% chance of avoiding +1.5ºC AGW, this with large negative emissions to follow the reaching of zero. (My assessment here using the simplistic Af=45%.) The AR6 SSP1-2.6 with its 2% annual reductions for a +2ºC AGW, again followed by negative emissions post 2075, I'd assess at something like 285Gt(C) post-2020 so 474ppm, not greatly less than that 2013 Budget you linked to @1. Mind the real wake-up numbers come from AR5 which put the 66% +1.5ºC AGW at 417ppm.
You mention the "positive feedbacks" and perhaps nigelj @2 should have added that land ice will continue melting away unless global temperatures are reduced, the worry being that Greenland will melt down (taking millennia) with warming somewhere between +1.0ºC & +2.0ºC AGW and with nothing to stop it once its summit drops down to warmer altitudes. And the stability of the West Antarctic ice is potentially even more sensitive to warming.
Specific to being "positive feedbacks" (which melted ice fields are not unless they entirely disappear & so reduce albedo), the melting tundra is also a process which will continue for centuries without a return to a chillier climate. The size of such the feedback from melting tundra will depend on how hot we make it.
Keeping the ice sheets intact and the tundra frozen is one of the more obvious reasons why limiting AGW to +1.5ºC is a sensible policy.
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nigelj at 09:11 AM on 15 August 2021The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
anticorncob6. My understanding from what I've read is if we stop emissions by for example 2050 temperatures will stop increasing quite soon after that, and the the arctic will stop melting fairly quickly, and acting as a positive feedback to warming, provided it hasn't crossed a tipping point where melting has become self reinforcing. This scenario makes sense to me.
It's not certain just when the arctic would cross a tipping point and it may have already. From memory the range is 1-3 degrees c. I could be wrong on all this and maybe someone has better information.
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Philippe Chantreau at 08:58 AM on 15 August 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32, 2021
This may not fall into the "New Research" category but is nevertheless worthy of mentioning: faced with unprecedented natural disasters having him deal at the same time with massive floods and gigantic fires, even Vladimir Poutin is acknowledgeing the threat of climate change and the urgency of action. It is quite remarkable coming from him, considering that he had consistently dismissed both ideas for decades and that Russian troll factories have worked very hard at influencing public opinion against action, including suspected attacks against SkS.
If the English translation did not cross, I had a translate option just by right clicking on the page.
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anticorncob6 at 05:39 AM on 15 August 2021The new IPCC Report includes – get this, good news
To stay below the main Paris target of 2°C (3.6°F) warming, global carbon emissions in SSP1-2.6 plateau essentially immediately and begin to decline after 2025 at a modest rate of about 2% per year for the first decade, then accelerating to around 3% per year the next decade, and continuing along a path of consistent year-to-year carbon pollution cuts before reaching zero around 2075. The IPCC concluded that once global carbon emissions reach zero, temperatures will stop rising.
This makes no sense to me. We can still avoid the 2C limit by reducing CO2 emissions by just 2-3% per year? And aren't there positive feedback mechanisms that will cause the world to keep warming after emissions hit zero (e.g., artcic methane release)?
Current emissions are 38 billion metric tons per year. If we integrate (38 * 10^9)*(0.97^x) from x = 0 to x = 55 we get 1 trillion tons of CO2 that will be emitted by 2075, and I haven't seen a carbon budget for two degrees that's anywhere near that big. So a 3% reduction per year wouldn't be nearly enough.
This source here says we have 469 billion metric tons left, and that was written in 2013, meaning that now we only have about 200 billion metric tons left, which at current rates means we will blow the two-degree target in only five years.
www.climatecentral.org/news/ipcc-climate-change-report-contains-grave-carbon-budget-message-16569
Perhaps better data since then might give us a better budget, but could it change by that much?
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Bob Loblaw at 02:38 AM on 15 August 2021It's Urban Heat Island effect
blaisct:
I have also replied to your post # 66 over on the Albedo Effect where Michael Sweet has responded.
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Bob Loblaw at 02:35 AM on 15 August 2021It's albedo
Also in response to blaisct's comment #66 posted over on the Urban Heat Island discussion.
Blaisct:
You continue to make poor choices in the numbers and calculations that you are doing. Going over your latest effort by number:
1. You continue to select an albedo for urban areas that is too low for anthropogenic surfaces, and you have failed to cite a reference for your value. In my comment # 64 on the Urban Heat Island discussion, I gave a reference to several artificial surface materials, all with albedo values that exceed the the value you have chosen. "Urban" areas are a mix of things like grass, roads, houses, etc. You would need to calculate how much of the surface is covered by each type, and work out an albedo for an "urban" area that way. If that is what you have done, you need to show your detailed calcuations on how you arrive at the 0.08 value.
2. There are no assumptions in the 0.31 albedo value for the earth as a whole. That is based on satellite measurements, and includes reflection from the surface, clouds, clear atmosphere, etc. Note that the only part of the surface reflection that reaches space is the part that makes it back out through the atmosphere and cloud cover. To calculate this in a model (which is what you are trying to do), you need to account for spatial variations (and daily/seasonal cycles) of solar input, surface albedo, cloud cover, and atmospheric conditions.
3 to 14. You continue to make unreasonable assumptions about the area that is undergoing a surface change, and how it relates to population. There is no reason to think that they are related through a simple proportion.
15 to 20. You continue to make errors in converting solar output (1367 W/m^2 measured perpendicular to the sun's rays) to an areal average over the surface of the earth. As MIchael Sweet points out, there is a factor of 4 involved, not a factor of 2. I also mentioned this in my earlier comment. If you do not understand why this is the case, then it is difficult to see how you can expect to do any useful calculations. You also need to consider seasonal variations in solar radiation distribution and seasonal albedo.
21. Converting radiative forcing to global temperature change involves looking at the top-of-atmosphere changes (what is seen from space), not surface changes alone. To properly incorporate surface changes into a calcuation, you need to use a much more complicated model of climate response to surface albedo changes.
22. You still get a wildy incorrect answer, due to bad data input and bad assumptions.
I have not bothered to follow the link to the Mark Healey document you mention. If that is the source you are getting your incorrect ideas from, then it is not worth bothering. The result you quote (that albedo changes can account for all the obsvered temperature rise) is completely inconsistent with the science.
Over at RealClimate, they have recent posted several articles on the just-released IPCC reports. One of those summarizes 6 key results. In that post, they provide the following graph from the IPCC report, which shows the estimated temperature response due to a variety of factors over the last 100 to 150 years. "Land use reflection and irrigation" is the second-last bar on the right. Note that the calculated effect is minor cooling, not warming.
Michael Sweet's suggestion to read the IPCC reports is a good one. I often suggest that people start with the first 1990 report, as this covers a lot of the basic climate science principles in a manner that is easier to understand for the non-expert. In the 1990 report, they mention the Sagan et al paper I linked to in my first comment. Google Scholar can probably help you fnd a free copy.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/206/4425/1363.abstract
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michael sweet at 01:08 AM on 15 August 2021It's Urban Heat Island effect
blaisct:
I have replied to you here, which is a more suitable thread to continue discussion.
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