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michael sweet at 03:01 AM on 17 March 2021Most important steps to build out a completely renewable energy system
David,
How to store excess energy from windy days to use on windless nights is the key issue of using renewables. I am surprised that you could not find where Jacobson et al and Williams et all address long term storage. Most of both papers is dedicated to addressing this issue.
In general, there are a lot of ways to address this issue. For example, current hydro power is used to supply primarily peak power in the middle of the day. If usage of the dams was altered, hydro power could provide a lot of the backup power needed on most nights instead (solar production is pretty constant. Windless nights are the harder problem.). Batteries can be used for storage of solar power for use at night or wind energy at night for use the next day. Long term storage (from summer to winter) is generally too expensive for batteries.
Storage of gasses and liquids is much cheaper than storage of electricity. Then the gasses (or liquids) can be used to generate electricity when it is needed. According to the EIA, currently existing underground storage of natural gas is about 6,000 billion cubic feet in the USA alone. source Usage (same source) is about 70 billion cubic feet on peak days. This is about 90 days of complete supply. Either electromethane or hydrogen can be stored in existing storage. On windy days in summer you make hydrogen (or electromethane) and store it. On windless winter nights you use the gas to generate electricity in currently existing gas turbines. Fuel cells using hydrogen are more energy efficient if they are developed in the next 10 years (this technology exists. The question is the cost of scale up to the entire country). This would easily supply the examples you give. Even if electrical usage was much greater there would still be enough storage.
Your wild claim that electromethane is not a viable option is completely unsupported. The three peer reviewed papers I cite show that storage is economically available to power 100% of the economy using current technology. If fuel cells are developed than hydrogen might be cheaper.
If you have trash to energy plants they can stockpile material to use to supply peak power. A lot of energy can be saved by customers who reduce use to get cheaper electricity. Many high users of electricity currently reduce use on peak usage days. My brother programs his electric car to charge only when there is excess power since the electricity is cheaper.
Williams et al and Jacobson et al describe their systems running for 4 years without problems supplying total energy to the economy.
In addition, scientists have found that the larger the grid the less incidence of windless nights occurs.
Germany will never generate 100% of all energy all the time, it is too small. They will be in a European grid that helps back them up. Norway has tremendous hydro that could imaginally back up all Europe.
You have to look at the big picture. Deniers in the past have used examples as small as a single wind turbine to argue against renewables. Scientists have shown that large grids (the bigger the better) generating All Energy for the economy are the cheapest way to go. Texas will have to connect to the grid.
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Eclectic at 23:56 PM on 16 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
JohnSeers @46, the gentleman in question does indeed keep returning, like Halley's Comet ~ but at intervals closer to 7.5 months rather than 75 years. Though unlike Halley's Comet, he gains a new name at every cycle.
And it's always the same nonsense arguments, and the same imperviousness to rational thinking. Idee fixe is the French term, I believe. Perhaps you can advise on the translation of two short planks.
Al Gore did come out with the statement: "If Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica ..." <unquote> but the reference was to the substantial inundation of Florida. And he specified no time scale. Presumably somewhere he made similar reference to the flooding of New York. In addition, Al Gore is definitely not a scientist, and cannot be specified as an authentic spokesman for modern climate science & its "predictions". (Not that the denialists care about such distinctions.)
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JohnSeers at 20:47 PM on 16 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Looks like SunBurst has been outed as a sockpuppet. Quelle surprise.
Someone else has pointed out his example of an Al Gore prediction (of New York flooding) does not hold up. I would just add that I notice he fails to provide a reference to the actual prediction and the actual words Al Gore used, which is an all too common problem in his echo chamber. All the better to misrepresent what was said.
I will add one point in refutation. Al Gore made this unreferenced prediction in 2006 according to SunBurst. New York was badly flooded in 2012. That seems pretty convincing to me.
I am aware that the science doubters argue until they are blue in the face that this does not count "'Cos it was caused by a hurricane.". Just a sign of their desperation to cling to their failing zombie tropes. -
MA Rodger at 19:51 PM on 16 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
All this denialist nonsense that keeps emerging about Clausius-Claperyon remains a curious phenomenon. Clausius-Claperyon simply says the dew point water content for constant pressure (pressure is significantly fixed within the atmosphere) is linearly dependent on temperature. The only shred of reason i can see for this denialist nonsense about something being 'uniform' would thus concern, not an assumption of 'iniform' global temperature, but either an assumption of atmospheric relative humidity remaining unchanged with temperature or an assumption of a 'uniform' average global temperature change, both of which are not assumed but modelled within GCMs and both of which (as Lacis et al use of GCMs demonstrates) are reasonably valid assumptions for an approximate assessment.
If there were a denialist out there with just half a brain, they may be able to explain it all properly. In the meantime I can but assume all this denialist Clausius-Claperyon nonsense is the result of swivel-eyed denialists thinking they have found something cunningly complex and thus an irrefutable argument, oblivious to the matter actually being remarkably straightforward.
Moderator Response:[PS] Pretty much all CC nonsense comes just one denialist that creates a lot a sock-puppets. He is convinced of his superiority (and his license to ignore comments policy). Just not worth the time as ignores any contrary evidence or interprets it as supporting his nonsense.
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David-acct at 11:09 AM on 16 March 2021Most important steps to build out a completely renewable energy system
Michael - the above link shows the electric generation from wind dropped from the normal 45-70gw per hour down to 8gw - 20GW per hour across the entire US during the same period that ERCOT dropped wlectric generation from wind.( 2/8/2021 through 2/19/2021,) Germany which has one of the highest penetrations of wind generated electricy suffers from multiple days with low electric production from Wind. See the attached link which shows approx 7 days where germany's electric generation dropped from the 50-70gw per hour to less than 30gw per hour for 5-7+ days (my apologies, agora-energiewende site's charts are a little hard to read/adjust the dates)
The willaims study also includes the conversion of home heating to electric ( or at least new homes and replacement as furnaces wear out)
based on current techology and the anticipated technology, neither battery or electomethane appear to be viable options when there are 3-4+ days where electric generation drops like we experienced in the US for the 7-8+ days from February 8- feb 19th. Likewise the same issue in Germany for the 4+5 dys they experienced in Februay.
I could not find in the Williams study (or jacobson's prior studies) how they overcome those issues. If you can point to how they anticipate handling those Issues, I would appreciate the help
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michael sweet at 06:09 AM on 16 March 2021Most important steps to build out a completely renewable energy system
David,
Williams et al 2021, the paper reviwed in the OP, primarily uses electromethane for use when there is little wind and solar. This could be stored in existing storage areas for natural gas and used in existing gas generators.
In addition, all the plans I have seen have a national or whole continent grid. Small grids like ERCOT are prone to failure when connection to a national grid would not fail. For example, during the recent shortage in Texas there might have been wind in the northern part of the country that could be delivered to Texas. The OP finds that renewable energy (primarily wind and solar) with storage is economically competitive with fossil fuels.
Recently I have seen some articles at CarbonBrief.org that suggest industry is leaning toward using hydrogen for storage. One key conclusion in the Williams et al 2021 is that we do not need to make that decision today. In any case we should build out wind and solar as rapidly as possible and switch everything over to electricity. Natural gas can provide adequate storage. In 10 years it will be clearer whether hydrogen or electromethane is a better choice for storage.
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SunBurst at 05:31 AM on 16 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
MA Rodger @40
An "earth in perfect thermal equilibrium" surely has to be energy flows to the poles which surely means temperature gradients.
Wrong! An object or sample in thermal equilibrium has no temperature gradients. If it did, heat would be flowing from the regions of higher temperatures to those of lower temperature, which would not be thermal equilibrium. In the Clausius-Claperyon equation, the temperature of the sample is characterized by a single value, not a bunch of values. Check it out for yourself by doing a search on "Clausius-Clapeyron equation derivation". I believe you will find that the first statement made is that the sample consists of a substance in which two phases of that substance are in thermal equilibrium with each other. So, if we apply the CC equation to a single temperature earth, we are automatically assuming that this earth is in thermal equilibrium with itself everywhere, period.
So don't ask me anymore for credible evidence of my claim that the CO2 "control knob" theory is false. You have a mountain of it already. Every temperature dataset you have that shows a non-uniform temperature over the surface of the earth is further evidence.
Moderator Response:[PS] Apologies for delay, but comment will released after an investigation for sock-puppetry is complete.
[DB] Sock puppet confirmed.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:46 AM on 16 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
What's fascinating to watch is how SunBurst has presented erroneous statements, been corrected with evidence and citations, and ignored it. It's clear he just flat out doesn't care when he gets something wrong.
@4, 6, 12 he said (without citation) warming isn't global, and shown he's wrong multiple times and in multiple ways.
@14 he claims (without citation) we're taking energy away from people who need it, and shown how this is wrong.
@18 he claims (without citation) that Al Gore said NYC would be under water in 10 years, and he was repeatedly shown this is wrong.
@20 he questions how we could know that human CO2 emissions are causing warming, and is shown the research and evidence, and ignores it.
@27 he asserts that "AGW folks" claim (without citation) that CO2 levels are "unprecedented," is shown the research and ignores the error of his assertion.
@35 he makes the false assertion (without citation) that Lacis 2010 claims the earth must be in perfect equilibrium, and will surely be back to defend his false statement.
If this isn't Gish Gallop then I don't know what is.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:16 AM on 16 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst @38... Being the word "equibrium" doesn't occur in the Lacis paper, perhaps you could better describe what you're trying to claim. To my understanding no one states a requirement the "assumption of an earth in perfect thermal equilibrium." In fact, all warming and cooling is going to be a function of a radiative imbalance.
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Philippe Chantreau at 00:44 AM on 16 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Now Sunburst has gone full delirium mode. Another rant that falls in the "not even wrong" category.
Considering how confident Sunburst is that everyone has it fundamentally wrong, he is bound to produce something monumental in the science litterature soon. I'll keep an "open mind" and will read whatever that will be once it has been peer-reviewed and published. Until then, I won't waste my time. I recommend DNFTT.
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MA Rodger at 22:26 PM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst @35,
So let me get straight what you are saying.
I require an "open mind" to be able to "recognise the possibility" of a big big boo-boo in climatology. Okay. I can run with that all day long.
And "the most far reaching" boo-boo (so you suggest there is more than one) is an assumed "earth in perfect thermal equilibrium" which you define as one with "a uniform temerature over "the entire surface." Now I struggle with this. An "earth in perfect thermal equilibrium" surely has to be energy flows to the poles which surely means temperature gradients. And the same with this "relative humidity would be 100% everywhere." Why would that be? But, hey, this is your 'possibility recognition' class, not mine. So I'll let it ride for the while.Then you ask me to "recall" that the "primary" assumption of AGW is Clausius-Claperyon which you say requires this "uniform temperature" over "the entire earth" for it to be valid. Now that will require some further explanation from you. Clausius-Claperyon simply shows a linear relationship between temperature and specific humidity at a constant pressure at the dew-point. I see no "uniform temperature" over "the entire earth" or even an "entire condensed state/vapor state sample" (whtever that is supposed to be).
And @38 you protest that "It is exactly how it is stated in Lacis et. al. (2010)." Of course, it would be proper to quote what Lacis et al actually say rather than just say they say it is "exactly how." So what do Lacis et al say? They mention Clausius-Claperyon just the once saying:-
"If the global atmospheric temperatures were to fall to as low as TS =TE [ie the surface cools from 288K to 255k], the Clausius-Clapeyron relation would imply that the sustainable amount of atmospheric water vapor would become less than 10% of the current atmospheric value."
But this use of Clausius-Clapeyron is not the substance of the Lacis et al findings. That is derived from a full-blown climate model. This quote is simply explaining the finding in more simplistic terms.
So this in no way supports your contention that "It is exactly how it is stated in Lacis et. al. 2010."
SunBurst, I am always open to ideas but you do seem to have failed to present anything valid @35 or @38. Maybe you have forgotten to explain some vital link in your argument? Or maybe you are a simple fool repeating the nonsense echoing round the denialosphere? I would suggest it is more likely the latter as you give no indication of the former. But don't feel so bad about it. You are not the first fool to gush out this same cretious nonsense here at SkS.
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David-acct at 21:24 PM on 15 March 2021Most important steps to build out a completely renewable energy system
Everyone knows how the Texas lost signigicant electric power generation on the early morning of Monday 2/15/2021 due to the failure of gas plant electric generation. Going from 45GW per hour down to 28 gw per hour over a period of 6 hours.
In Texas/Ercot, wind produces on average of 15GW per hour to 25GW per hour. Of note, electricity generated from wind dropped down below 5GW per hour from 2.9.2021 though 2.18.2021 often producing less than 2GW per hour with only a few times during those 9 days producing in the range of 8GW per hour. That was for a period of 9 days, though there are frequent drops in electric production from wind lasting full days, The link above shows drops down below 8GW per hour on 3.6.21, 3.3.2021, 3.6.2021. Storage is currently feasible to handle the frequene frequency when wind doesnt produce. I look forward to a solution.
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nigelj at 18:03 PM on 15 March 2021Most important steps to build out a completely renewable energy system
M Sweet, glad to have helped, but I can't recall reading the article or bringing it to your attention. Where and when did I do that? However I have just posted a link to the article and the research study over on RC. We all need some good news.
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SunBurst at 17:49 PM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Eclectic @37
What "large amounts of genuine information"? If you can't legitimately argue the most basic concept supporting all of your claims, you don't have anything!
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SunBurst at 17:40 PM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Rob Honeycutt @36
This is no "strawman" argument. It is exactly how it is stated in Lacis et. al. 2010. And I understand the basics of climate science all too well, well enough to recognize its clash with other more legitimate sciences.
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Eclectic at 15:25 PM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Yes, Sunburst @35 and prior ~ you have indeed been "through this many times before."
And each time you return to it, you have a different user-name.
But despite your many visits to SkS site over the years, you appear unable to learn anything ~ even though large amounts of genuine information is provided to you.
The real world seems too difficult for you.
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:18 PM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst... "Probably the most far-reaching inconsistency between fundamental physics and climate science is the assumption of an earth in perfect thermal equilibrium."
Essentially, your entire understanding of climate science is based on a strawman argument. If you can't be bothered to try to understand the basics of climate science you will necessarily be ignorant of it.
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SunBurst at 13:52 PM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
MA Rodger @24
Given a fair chance, I believe I can clear up most of your concerns about my claims, and maybe even a few things you never quite understood. It would, however, take an open mind on your part and recognize the possibility that not all of the cardinal laws of modern "climate science" are consistent with fundament laws of phyics. Probably the most far-reaching inconsistency between fundamental physics and climate science is the assumption of an earth in perfect thermal equilibrium. Now you and I both know that can't possibly be true or all of your temperature data would show a uniform temperature over the entire surface. Also, relative humidity would be 100 percent everywhere. This is the basis, however, for arguing the CO2 "control knob" theory. As you may recall, this theory relies primarily on the Clausius-Claperyon equation which assumes a uniform temperature over the entire condensed state/vapor state sample. Since the entire earth is our "sample" in this case, CO2 cannot in general be the controlling GHG unless we have a uniform temperature earth.
Despite what seems to be total absurdity in this "control knob" theory, however, it is the reason why climate science does not allow dismissal of the CO2 greenhouse effect as small compared with that of H2O. It is also the basis for lingo such as forcings, feedbacks, fast and slow feedbacks, and the somewhat comical iceball earth scenarios. It seems to me that modern climate science has gotten into a mode of thinking that needs correction!
At this point, I have probably discussed these issues as much as I dare. In fact, I expect these comments will be taken down within 12 hours of when I post them. Your AGW comrades and moderators don't like to hear this kind of news about their pet theories. I've been through this many times before!
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:49 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst... Your question, I'm assuming, is, "When have we had CO2 levels as high as they are today?"
But that question was followed with the comment saying, "The story I keep hearing from the AGW folks is that current CO2 levels are unprecidented."
So... as MA Rogers just pointed out, the last time we've had CO2 levels this high was >3 mya. No one has ever claimed that current CO2 levels are unprecedented in all of earth's history. Current levels are unprecedented, certainly during the holocene, certainly during the past million years of glacial-interglacial cycles.
If you bother to read Dr Tripati's paper you mention you'd see the abstract states:
The carbon dioxide (CO2) content of the atmosphere has varied cyclically between ~180 and ~280 parts per million by volume over the past 800,000 years, closely coupled with temperature and sea level. For earlier periods in Earth’s history, the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) is much less certain, and the relation between pCO2 and climate remains poorly constrained. We use boron/calcium ratios in foraminifera to estimate pCO2 during major climate transitions of the past 20 million years. During the Middle Miocene, when temperatures were ~3° to 6°C warmer and sea level was 25 to 40 meters higher than at present, pCO2 appears to have been similar to modern levels. Decreases in pCO2 were apparently synchronous with major episodes of glacial expansion during the Middle Miocene (~14 to 10 million years ago) and Late Pliocene (~3.3 to 2.4 million years ago).
This is consistent with what everyone exchanging comments with you right now has been stating, as well as being consistent with Al Gore's movie.
My suggestion is that you read both the Tripati paper and the Royer paper I previously posted. Then we can at least start to have a reasonably informed conversation about these issues.
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SunBurst at 11:36 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Bob Loblaw @22
Your claim involving https://skepticalscience.com/co2-warming-35-percent.htm is a strawman since I never claimed that the Climate Myth in this link was true. I thought it was already known that about 20% of the greenhouse effect was due to CO2 while the remaining 80% was due primarily to water vapor.
In the other link https://skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm , some bold assertions are made without any error bars either on the data or the conclusions. Since the human released amounts of CO2 and other GHGs are so much smaller than the naturally released amounts of these gases, it is highly likely that the amount of human released gases would fit within the uncertainty of the naturally released gases. In other words, one could not distinguish between the human released gases and uncertainties in the naturally released gases. In this case, you haven't debunked anything.
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SunBurst at 11:01 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Rob Honeycutt @29
All right, Smarty! Then answer my question from @27. Keep in mind, however, the quote from https://skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm
... atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years (Tripati 2009).
Let's see how well informed you are!
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:37 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst would likely benefit from reading Royer et al 2004.
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MA Rodger at 08:30 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Rob Honeycutt @29,
Let's assume he is ignorant and isn't just playing with his troll-head on.
SunBurst @27,
CO2 levels were momentarily (thus for a 100k years perhaps) approaching today's levels back 3 million years ago. This was a time when the Panama Isthmus had just formed between N & S America, an event that would make a big impact on global climate. The levels of CO2 we see today were have not been seen for 13 million years and prior to that on scales of 100s of millions of years, CO2 was multiple-times higher than today although estimates of how many multiples are not well defined.
But do bear in mind that the sun has been getting warmer with time. Roughly this equates to a forcing equal to a doubling of CO2 every 150 million years. So to balance a weaker sun back 450 million years ago, CO2 would have to be perhaps at 2,000ppm, 8-times higher than pre-industrial.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:10 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst @27.... Oh, come on! Surely you're not that uninformed on this issue. Are you?
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Bob Loblaw at 07:13 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBUrst @ 25.
What Rob said @ 26. I guessed that you would probably try to claim that your statement of a "prediction he made in 2006 that New York City would be flooded within ten years due to sea level rise from the melting of the Arctic ice cap." was from the movie.
So, your score on this issue is (so far):
- You got the year of the movie right (2006),
- Gore said nothing about "within 10 years",
- It was not about melting "the Arctic ice cap".
Pretty pathetic, really. The only thing right is pretty trivial. On any item of substance, you got it badly wrong.
Where are you getting this crap? You really need to find yourself some better sources of information. There is lots here at this site if you take the time to look.
...but at comment #27, you are just running off on a different quest. To avoid admitting your error, you are trying to distract everyone. It won't work - we've seen all this sort of behaviour time after time after time.
If you actually have something accurate and new to contribute, please do so.
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SunBurst at 06:57 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Rob Honeycutt @26
When have we had CO2 levels as high as they are today? The story I keep hearing from the AGW folks is that current CO2 levels are unprecidented.
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:33 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst... It's clearly stated in the movie what's being demonstrated is what would happen if all the ice on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melted. An ice-free planet, which we had the last time CO2 levels were as high as today, would have sea levels that are 70 meters higher than today. These are facts.
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gerontocrat at 06:05 AM on 15 March 2021Is Elon Musk right about Carbon Capture?
Elon Musk like Bill Gates is a true believer in that technology can solve all the problems - a behavioural change away from the economy of things is regarded as unnecessary.
In the next few decades we will find out the reality.
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SunBurst at 05:56 AM on 15 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Bob Loblaw @21
Al Gore showed scenes in his movie An Inconvenient Truth that depicted a bunch of cities, including NYC, underwater from the melting Arctic ice caps. He later backpedaled in this point in his sequel. In his new movie, he depicts Hurricane Sandy as the causing NYC flooding, including the flooding of the WTC Memorial which was then under construction. By changing the cause of NYC flooding from rising sea-level to a storm (brought on by AGW, of course), recovers some of his credibility.
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Philippe Chantreau at 04:33 AM on 15 March 20212010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Crystal Wolf, you need to up your game, pay attention, and do some work of your own.
The posts you are attempting to respond to are 10 years old; every post bears a time stamp that shows the date and time. Tom Curtis has not contributed to this site for a number of years. His analysis of Norman's weaknesses was accurate, as Norman was called out repeatedly for picking more favorable US statisitcs than the ones considered by Jeff Masters, which were global and therefore much more representative of a global phenomenon.
The original post is about extreme weather events and their correlation with the extra energy accumulated in the climate system. Since the post was written, global temperatures have gone up steadily, and set records five times. You read that right, the 5 warmest years on the record have all occurred since 2015, years after this post was written, and after the comments you responded to. If you had done even the most basic reading about the problem, you would have already been aware of that fact. Extreme events have also increased.
If you want to slam SKS, do so for failing to update the OP and show how much worse the situation is today than 10 years ago.
As for the correlation with extreme events, it has become only stronger, as shown by this excellent summary from NOAA. Unfortunately it is limited to the US, but nonetheless shows an unmistakable trend.
Moderator Response:[TD] Crystal Wolf, you can find more recent posts about extreme weather by entering the term "extreme weather" in the Search field at the top left of the page.
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Crystal_Wolf at 03:38 AM on 15 March 20212010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Btw i hink you should make it more simple to understand because of my daughter trying to use this site for a project and it makes no sense to her. I ngive it a 2 star rating if i could because i want everything in here to be true, not just jumble up opinions.
Moderator Response:[TD] How old is your daughter? There are many sources tailored to many different ages, so if you tell us what age and which topics are appropriate, we can point your daughter to more appropriate resources.
This site is extremely well organized in multiple dimensions. You need to start by going to the Home page, and clicking the "Newcomers, start here" button. Once you are in that page, scroll down to the section "Good starting points for newbies." Click the links in that section. Also note in the left margin of every page, near the top, "Most Used Climate Myths." At the bottom of that thermometer, click the "View all arguments..." link. Also at the top of every page is a "Resources" menu; click it.
You are completely wrong about this site being just opinions. This site is famous for backing up all contentions with references to peer reviewed science. Many posts are divided into multiple tabbed pages--Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced--that are progressively more detailed, more technical, and have more references to the underlying science.
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Crystal_Wolf at 03:21 AM on 15 March 20212010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman has done nothing wrong he is proving facts.
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MA Rodger at 19:51 PM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst @20,
When you ask about "New Research" (a term used in these SkS pages to denote research new this week), I asume you are simply trying to coin a perjorative term to troll onto this thread. So I assume you are actually asking about all what Rob Honeycutt @23 terms the "old research" which has been rattling round for yeras if not decades. Note this week's 'new research' is fresh-off-the-boat and needs a bit of time to be checked out, a checking process achieved with 'old research'.
You take a giant leap in conceding at least that there is reason to consider the possibility that you are entirely wrong about temperature trends. Well done you!!
However, I struggle to see the connection between, on the one hand, the contribution of CO2 to the "total greenhouse effect" and the percentage change wrought by AGW on that "total greenhouse effect" which you ask respondents to "remember", and on the other hand, attribution of the causes of the global warming you now see as worth assuming?
The"total greenhouse effect" contributes roughly +33ºC to planetary temperature and, while assessments of the direct mechanism of the GH-effect (eg Schmidt et al (2010) - note the date = 'old research') shows CO2 contributing 20% to "total greenhouse effect" , note also that CO2 is an esential requirement for the other main contributor to the GH-effect H2O making CO2 the principle control knob governing Earth's temperature (Lacis et al 2010 - note the date ='old research').
The actual question you ask is addressed by Bob Loblaw @22 but note that assessing the contribution of CO2 to AGW is not straightforward as the various gases have differing residence times and CO2 is particularly long-lived. But perhaps contributions cab be best simplistically measured using the NOAA AGGI which shows CO2 alone contributing a little under 60% of today's AGW (positive) forcing. Do note that all the other contributions are like CO2 anthropogenic in origin.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:45 PM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst @20... "...does any of your 'New Research' turned up a plausible explanation as to how we know that human carbon dioxide emissions are the cause?"
That doesn't really require new research since the old research has demonstrated that more than sufficiently. Just look at the change in radiative forcing for CO2 over the past century.
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Bob Loblaw at 13:11 PM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Sunburst @ 20
"CO2 accounts for only about 20% of the total greenhouse effect"
Wrong.
https://skepticalscience.com/co2-warming-35-percent.htm
"...less that 10% of that is caused by humans."
Wrong.
https://skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm
You really need to come up with something that is not a long-debunked talking point.
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Bob Loblaw at 13:06 PM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Sunburst @ 18: "...he made in 2006 that New York City would be flooded within ten years..."
He didn't. Unless you can provide a reliable reference of where he did.
https://skepticalscience.com/al-gore-inconvenient-truth-errors.htm
Sunburst @ 19 "...then changed to global warming in by the middle 1980s"
It didn't.
https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
Unless you are just looking at observed temperatures and trying claim that nothing byut CO2 is affecting temperature trends. In that case, you are applying the phrase "global warming" to two different phenomena. The early 20th century rise, the mid-20th century cooling, and the current rapid warming since the 1980s are not caused by the same thing.
https://skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-mid-20th-century.htm
You need to find some better sources of information.
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SunBurst at 12:37 PM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Question: Assuming you all are 100 percent correct in the temperature trends you are stating, does any of your "New Research" turned up a plausible explanation as to how we know that human carbon dioxide emissions are the cause? Remember that CO2 accounts for only about 20% of the total greenhouse effect, and less that 10% of that is caused by humans.
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SunBurst at 12:14 PM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
nigelj @17
And 10 years does not constitute a climate change trend. Its generally accepted we need 30 years of data to be certain the climate has changed in a fundamental way and its not just short term natural cyclical variability.
Then howcome the threat was global cooling from the early 1940s up to about 1975, and then changed to global warming in by the middle 1980s?
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SunBurst at 12:03 PM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
John Seers @9
However I would like SunBurst to list one prediction by Al Gore that "failed" because I do not think SunBurst will be able to list one.
All right. How about the prediction he made in 2006 that New York City would be flooded within ten years due to sea level rise from the melting of the Arctic ice cap. Well, the year 2016 has come and gone but NYC is still on dry land.
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Crystal_Wolf at 08:39 AM on 14 March 20212010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Tom Curtis @30 "It turns out that you are just another denier who poses as a neutral questioner, but whose real agenda is to raise doubt - any doubt regardless of rationality - with relation to any evidence for AGW." Actually Tom I think the physics to AGW is valid. People are burning lots of carbon based fuel and are most likely increasing the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. It will cause some warming of the Globe. As this website states, a denier is one who will not change based upon valid evidence. I am a skeptic in this issue (Weather extermes due to Global warming). I will change my view when valid evidence is presented to prove this conclusion. What I have been requesting is balance with historical data as well as wanting some mechanisms to explain why warming is causing the extremes. If it be flooding, drought etc. what is the warming atmophere doing to cause these events to take place at a greater frequency or intensity. Jeff Masters lists a lot of bad events that happened in 2010 but provides very little linking mechanisms to explain how global warming was responsible. He is a PhD meterologist and would have the knowledge to provide links and mechanisms. If I am given this type of information and would still deny it, then your label of "denier" would be most correct. (-Snip-). I agree with Norman.
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nigelj at 07:26 AM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Sunburst @12
"You must, however, consider the Big Picture in that "global warming" really isn't global unless the upward temperature trends are happening everywhere, and I have pointed out several regions where exactly the opposite is happening."
No. The world doesn't have to be warming at every place for the world to be warming as a whole. All that has to happen is the planets average temperature goes up. This is self evidently possible even if some small areas are cooling. By analogy a simple traditional wood fire could be getting hotter and hotter measured with temperatures in the chimney even if you spilt your iced drink on a small part of the fire causing one corner of the fire to cool for a little bit. I've already explained all this @7 and you havent disproven it with any data. You have pointed out a couple of regions where you allege without hard evidence theres cooling but you neglect the many more regions that show warming. You provide no proof that areas of your alleged cooling are greater than areas of warming. And as people point out you confuse a warming trend with weather so you havent demonstrated any actual cooling trend anywhere at all on the planet.
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Sunburst @13
"Well, you are free to believe whatever you want. But I'm sure that most Americans who have seen skyrocketing heating bills and frozen water mains for the past 5-10 winters would tend to say it's a cooling trend and not just cold weather. "
Or is it because electric companies are simply charging more money for other reasons? Maybe they are building new infrastructure. Maybe they are getting greedy. Maybe there is maineinance work. Again you provide no reliable evidence of why prices are skyrocketing or even "if" they are sky rocketing.
And 10 years does not constitute a climate change trend. Its generally accepted we need 30 years of data to be certain the climate has changed in a fundamental way and its not just short term natural cyclical variability. This is why it was only decided in about the 2000s that burning fossil fuels was definitely causing climate change. So even if the global climate WAS cooling for 5 -10 years (it isn't) this doesnt prove very much.
" At any rate, it would simply be wrong to deprive those people (including myself) of the fuels they need in order to get them through the winter seasons despite all of the "global warming" we are experiencing."
Strawman. Nobody is depriving anyone of fuel.
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Rob Honeycutt at 07:11 AM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst @12...
The term "global warming" refers to the rise in global mean temperature. There is nothing dictating that every single point on the planet must be warming for it to be global warming.
You also failed to address the point that your original statement said the cooling was "equally as strong" as the warming, when it clearly in fact is not.
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SunBurst at 07:01 AM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
nigeli @ 7
I sympathise with the challenges people face, but these comments about what they can afford are just empty assertions. On what basis with what facts? What expert study says this? Even if they had difficulties affording this you can have carbon tax and dividend schemes which are financially gentle on people (google it).
Don't trouble me with "expert studies". These studies say only what the paymasters want them to say. First try living in one of those cooling regions I describe and see what it's like to try to make ends meet on reduced crops and whatever government assistance they can get. And the more government handout we have, the more inflation we get. Either way we are stuck with less, and things are bad enough even under the present circumstances.
Moderator Response:[DB] Sloganeering snipped.
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SunBurst at 06:51 AM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Philippe Chantreau @ 13
Well, you are free to believe whatever you want. But I'm sure that most Americans who have seen skyrocketing heating bills and frozen water mains for the past 5-10 winters would tend to say it's a cooling trend and not just cold weather. At any rate, it would simply be wrong to deprive those people (including myself) of the fuels they need in order to get them through the winter seasons despite all of the "global warming" we are experiencing.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:49 AM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
Sunburst, you seem to be the one stuck with not understanding the very words you yourself use to argue.
You have pointed to several regions where cold events have happened recently (weather) but failed to produce data that would show that there is a long term cooling trend in these locations. In post 8 above, MA Rodger did not mention gobal averages at all but instead linked data that clearly show an upward trend for the 2 locations you mentioned with enough precision that they could be checked.
So, not only these locations fail to show "a downward trend equally strong as the upward trend in other regions," they actually show an upward trend, consistent with the global trend. How did you get the impression that these locations were experiencing a long term cooling trend?
Repeating stuff does not make it become real. If you want to be taken seriously, you must now produce local data that shows a long term cooling trend of approximately 0.18 deg C per decade. Considering how your original argument went, you should produce a great quantity of them too.
You must also show data showing a decreasing growing season. That will likely not be in the 48 contiguous US, where the length of the growing season has gone up steadily. I'll add that, if you want to go into the growing season argument, in order to keep it honest you must steer away from research showing that the overall warming could cause a decrease in the number of days suitable for plant growth due to soil moisture and other factors adversely affected by rising temperatures.
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SunBurst at 04:55 AM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
MA Rodger, nigelj, John Seers, David Kirtley, Rob Honeycutt
You all seem to be stuck on using global averages as your only way of characterizing global temperature trends. You must, however, consider the Big Picture in that "global warming" really isn't global unless the upward temperature trends are happening everywhere, and I have pointed out several regions where exactly the opposite is happening. This is especially true in the case where the warming is caused by the CO2 greenhouse effect since CO2 is non-condensing and therefore stays in the atmosphere long enough to become more or less evenly spread. In this case, would it not be much more logical that the greenhouse warming would also be evenly spread instead of some regions showing great warming and other regions showing great cooling? You miss this sort of thing by relying only on global average temperatures.
Moderator Response:[DB] Does "global warming" mean it’s warming everywhere?
"No, “global warming” means Earth's average annual air temperature is rising, but not necessarily in every single location during all seasons across the globe. It’s like your grades. If one semester you get all Bs and Cs, and the next you get all As and Cs, your grade point average rises, even though you didn’t improve in every class.
That’s the way it is with Earth’s near-surface temperature as atmospheric greenhouse gas levels climb. Temperature trends across the entire globe aren’t uniform because of the diverse geography on our planet—oceans versus continents, lowlands versus mountains, forests versus deserts versus ice sheets—as well as natural climate variability. When you’re zoomed in on a particular place, you may not be able to see the overall trend.
It is only when scientists calculate the average of temperature changes from every place on Earth over the course of a year to produce a single number, and then look at how that number has changed over time that a very clear, global warming trend emerges. In other words, it’s only when we “zoom out” to the planet-wide scale that the trend is obvious: despite a few, rare areas experiencing an overall cooling trend, the vast majority of places across the globe are warming."
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:52 AM on 14 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
I'm very curious where SunBurst finds cooling "that is equally as strong as the upward trend" because I'm just not seeing it.
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Stephen Mettler at 02:42 AM on 14 March 2021'Freedom from Fossil Fuels' - a climate science framework for non-scientists
Thank you Joel, I really appreciate the kind feedback and I'm so glad this can be an easy on-ramp to welcome more people in!
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David Kirtley at 23:29 PM on 13 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
SunBurst, you are confusing weather for climate. Take a look here: Does cold weather disprove global warming?
As MA Rodger pointed out @8, one year's cold temperatures (weather) need to be looked at in the larger context (climate) to see if there is any trend. Deke Arndt, in this tweet, summed this up well for the continental US, for Feb:
Now compare this year's Feb to Febs from earlier in the 20th century:
Do you see the trend? That is global warming.
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JohnSeers at 20:20 PM on 13 March 2021Skeptical Science New Research for Week #9, 2021
nigelj @ 7
SunBurst
As you rightly point out Al Gore's expertise is not the issue as suggested by SunBurst. However I would like SunBurst to list one prediction by Al Gore that "failed" because I do not think SunBurst will be able to list one.
Al Gore may have had a tendency to frame his narrative in rather doom laden terms and his desire to dramatise for effect gave ammunition for criticism. But he was fairly accurate.
The only prediction SunBurst is likely to come up with is Arctic ice. An accurate understanding of exactly what Gore said on this does not add up to a prediction. (Though you could criticise the words for dramatising a worst case scenario.)
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