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Riduna at 18:25 PM on 27 December 2020The top 10 weather and climate events of a record-setting year
Our immediate problem is not population growth but the imperative of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, largely the product of electricity generation, transport and industrial processes.
Many countries have made a start by replacing coal-burning power stations, with energy generated from renewable sources, mostly wind and solar. Intermittency problems associated with these sources is largely overcome by pumped hydro and battery storage - the latter likely to become cheaper and more widely used as a result of advances in battery technology now in progress.
In Australia, the transition to renewable energy is well advanced. Over $10 billion has already been invested in solar, wind and storage, with future projects estimated to cost $45 billion approved for construction. It is likely that domestic use of fossil fuels to generate electricity will become a thing of the past well before 2040, giving Australian industry the cheapest electricity in the world.
By comparison some countries, notably China, either support domestic use of coal to generate electricity or promote its use by funding construction of coal fired power stations in less developed countries by providing soft-loans through government-owned companies and lending agencies.
An obstacle to global decarbonisation is the transport sector. It continues to rely on use of oil-based fuels for propulsion and will continue doing so until technology produces solid-state batteries with significantly greater storage capacity at lower cost. Fortunately these developments are possible within the next 3-5 years and are likely to increase range and reduce cost of passenger and haulage vehicles. However electric vehicles must be priced at, or below, the cost of vehicles now in use.
Technological solutions to reduce industrial emissions have been or are being developed with a view to reducing emissions from processes such as cement production and smelting, while advances in battery technology will make it possible for plant and equipment to operate without emissions.
There is hope for the future but that hope is dependent on rapid implementation of these measures and their effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If this is not achieved, an increasingly hostile environment will contribute to radical reduction of the human population - and its polluting ways.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:27 AM on 27 December 2020The top 10 weather and climate events of a record-setting year
Riduna @3,
I share your concerns, but would encourage you to consider an important clarification regarding the 'population problem' - the need to focus on the more harmful, less sustainable, portion of the population.
The Human Development Report 2020 I refer to in my comment @2 includes information about the relative impacts of different portions of the global population, including the following: "Figure S7.2.3: The wealthiest 1 percent of individuals worldwide emit 100 times as much carbon dioxide each year as the poorest 50 percent". In that same figure (S7.2.3) the Carbon Emissions (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita per year) of the average member of the 78 million in the top 1% is 146.2 tonnes.
A break down of the global total impacts is:
- The Carbon Emissions of the average member of the 780 million in the top 10% is 37.4 tonnes = 29.2 billion tonnes per year (the top 1% are 11.4 billion tonnes - 40% of the top 10%).
- The Carbon Emissions of the average member of the 3.1 billion in the middle 40% is 7.1 tonnes = 22.0 billion tonnes per year.
- The Carbon Emissions of the average member of the 3.9 billion in the bottom 50% is 1.4 tonnes = 5.5 billion tonnes per year.
- The top 10% cause 29.2 of the global total 56.7 impact > 50%.
And the HDR 2020 addresses the larger scope of human impacts, more than just climate change, striving to get global leadership to pursue improvements of human life circumstances while staying within planetary boundaries. And an important understanding is that poorer people have an ethical and moral Right to increase their impacts, aspiring to levels matching 'supposedly more advanced people', as they pursue living a better life. A part of the HDR 2020 Summary Statement (last page) is:
"The Report calls for a just transformation that expands human freedoms while easing planetary pressures. For people to thrive in the Anthropocene, new development trajectories must do three things: enhance equity, foster innovation and instil a sense of stewardship of the planet. These outcomes matter in their own right, and they matter for our shared future on our planet. All countries have a stake in them"
So the real 'population problem' is the highest impacting portion of the population that Others 'aspire to develop to be like'.
A changed perception that requires the richer people to be less harmful and more helpful individuals, rather than people being impressed by wealth and power regardless of how it is acquired, is clearly a significant helpful change required in the population.
As for concerns about increased global total population a recent Report in The Lancet, "Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study" (Study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), establishes the following understandings:
- "In the reference scenario, the global population was projected to peak in 2064 at 9·73 billion (8·84–10·9) people and decline to 8·79 billion (6·83–11·8) in 2100."
- "Our alternative scenarios suggest that meeting the Sustainable Development Goals targets for education and contraceptive met need would result in a global population of 6·29 billion (4·82–8·73) in 2100 and a population of 6·88 billion (5·27–9·51) when assuming 99th percentile rates of change in these drivers.
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Nick Palmer at 01:00 AM on 27 December 2020More CO2 in the atmosphere hurts key plants and crops more than it helps
Worth considering is that when the denialist lobby drag up periods of Earth's pre-history when things were warmer than today and life was far more abundant pole to pole that was because Earth had no cold ice caps and maybe that explains why the AVERAGE global temperature was higher - but that doesn't, mean that equatorial and temerate zone temps were higher too. Any paleo climatologists around who could confirm this?
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Riduna at 12:11 PM on 26 December 2020The top 10 weather and climate events of a record-setting year
Increase in a number of indicators affecting climate should be of major concern to those who naïvely expect to live and prosper on this planet for the next 80 years or so.
It looks as though human ingenuity may thwart the best efforts of Covid-19 to significantly reduce a burgeoning human population which steadfastly refuses to curb its growth in number, its greenhouse gas emissions and its other polluting activities. If Coivid-19 doesn’t get us, climate change will by reducing our ability to sustain ourselves in an increasingly hostile environment.
An indication of this was experienced during the Australian 2019-20 fire season which claimed the lives of around of around 500 people, killed an estimated 3 billion other animals, destroyed 2,779 houses and burned over 18 million hectares. Interestingly, mean temperature was recorded across the continent at 1.5°C+ above the pre-industrial.
Much has been written about the dangers of a mean temperature 2.0°C above the pre-industrial mean, yet Australian experience is that a global increase of 1.5°C would be very destructive and very dangerous indeed. Yet we know how to effectively avoid the catastrophe of 2.0°C or the 3.0°C+ increase we are presently heading for. Curb population growth and reduce emissions to net zero – and do it rapidly!
We appear intent on doing neither, even though we know how to achieve both.
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Joel_Huberman at 01:11 AM on 26 December 2020Skeptical Science Housekeeping - December 2020
I like the paragraph you wrote on the Skeptical Science page at MeWe:
How to break an irony loop: has anybody else noticed that even as we read yet another op-ed or news article detailing how messed up and anti-social Facebook is that the only way of sharing such articles on social media is via the usual suspects, including Facebook? Obviously, if nobody knows there are alternatives then we're stuck circling that drain in perpetuity. Among other improvements to Skeptical Science we're happy to break that pattern and hope others will "follow" (hah-hah) by adding a "share" button for MeWe.
I should add that I also like the way articles are displayed on the MeWe site. The Skeptical Science team has obviously put a lot of thought into your MeWe page. Thanks!
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Doug Bostrom at 05:57 AM on 25 December 2020Skeptical Science Housekeeping - December 2020
Yay Collin!
It's a little hard to fully describe how transformative Collin has been for our site code. In any case we wouldn't be able to use Collin's preferred adjectives to faithfully echo his reactions, as he was scraping away at layers of hasty additions glued on by various cowboys over the years.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:26 AM on 25 December 2020More CO2 in the atmosphere hurts key plants and crops more than it helps
ubrew12,
Tragically many people only look for a 'personal positive' to allow them to dismiss or out-weigh any other information about the negatives of something they want to benefit from. That happens regarding lots of issues. It is self-interest encouraged to become harmful selfishness by competition for status, especially when harmful misleading cheaters can get away with winning.
The latest Human Development Report (2020) presents the improved understanding of the need to consider the value of the natural environment (non-renewable resources as well as renewable biodiversity) when evaluating 'development progress'. The majority of HDR 2020 is regarding climate change impacts, including impacts on biodiversity due to climate change. Understanding that evaluation of human development sustainability needs to consider 'these externalities to human-centric considerations' is only now potentially becoming more of 'the Norm'. That more holistic evaluation on starting to be 'more of the norm' shows how harmfully biased the 'norms of the richest people and the supposedly most advanced nations with the most influence on how things are investigated and perceived' have developed to be.
An important addition to understanding in HDR 2020 is the modification of the Human Development Index to reduce the evaluated level of 'measures of human progress' by accounting for CO2 Emissions per capita and Material Footprint per capita (including counting impacts that happen in other nations but are imported - imported impacts of production that happen in another nation). That simple Common Sense adjustment punts many of the 'supposedly most advanced nations many levels down the ranks (Canada drops from 16th to 56th, USA drops from 17th to 67th, Australia drops from 8th to 80th, New Zealand rises from 14th to 8th).
It is important to understand the fuller story like the presentation in the HDR 2020. That can help argue against many possible claims of 'positive results from climate change (or any other harmful activity)'.
I try to make the point that it is incorrect to believe that a 'positive benefit' can be justified by comparing the 'positive' with any 'negatives' and deciding that the 'positives' out-weight the 'negatives' (that evaluation is really only valid for things like medical interventions where the person 'potentially harmed' is the person 'potentially helped'. Much more consideration is involved to justify comparing 'positives for Some People' with 'negatives for Others' - positives for desperately poor have to out-weigh concerns for reduced wealth of the wealthiest that still has the wealthiest as the wealthiest).
I also try to point out that a 'positives for some' vs. 'negatives for Others' comparison is hard to make 'fairly' because current day people, especially higher status people, are likely to have biased perceptions of "Their Positives" vs. "Future Negatives". And there is the constant problem in current day populations of people being biased about "Their Group's Benefits" vs. "Harm Done to Others" (which is the same problem as the current day vs. future when future people are considered to be Others).
Also, the restriction of the evaluations to what currently counts in Human Economic Activity is also a very harmful way to evaluate things. What is not yet know about the harm being done by human activities 'argued to be progress' can be very tragic for the future of humanity.
An example of how a biased person could interpret the HDR 2020 content would be focusing on the bits of 'positives'. One of those 'bits of positive' in the report is the reference to evaluations that indicate that global warming by 2100 will likely reduce the number of extreme temperature days in the Rich Northern nations. The measure is simply the expected yearly change of number of extremely hot or cold days without any consideration of the magnitude of the temperature change (if there are fewer extra extreme hot days than the reduction of the number of extreme cold days the measure is a 'drop in extreme days'). That 'Positive' perception misses the fact that the same report indicates the number of extreme days in a year will be increasing in most of the rest of the nations. And it dismisses any consideration of all the other harmful consequences of unsustainable development pursuing 'improvements' that erroneously can consider harmful over-development of conditions for the richest today to be 'worth it' because the evaluated improvements by and for the richest exceed the perceptions by the richest of the 'lack of improvement' for the future generations or for the less-rich portions of the population (those Others).
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:10 AM on 24 December 2020The top 10 weather and climate events of a record-setting year
JWRebel,
I agree about the flaws of measuring damages in dollar values, from a more holistic perspective.
The latest Human Development Report (2020) includes detailed presentations of the developing understanding of the need for the 'value' of the natural environment to be part of the evaluation of 'human development progress'.
There are many elements of the environment such as potential economic resources and other environmental factors that potentially have, but may not yet have developed, an understanding of their importance to economic activity like:
- Bee Pollination
- Sea Grass habitat
- Molecular or biological compounds that exist in biodiversity but are not yet discovered or realized to have value (or tragically that have disappeared because of biodiversity loss before being discovered)
From a holistic perspective the existing natural environment and resources are Invaluable. Human activity that ruins by over-harvesting, or consumes in a non-renewable way, is unimaginably harmful - no dollar value can represent it.
And the negative impacts of climate change on biodiversity and other environmental considerations get ignored - all the time - because they are not part of the calculated 'Worth of human development' in the economic games humans have Made-up.
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JWRebel at 18:19 PM on 22 December 2020The top 10 weather and climate events of a record-setting year
Expressing damages in dollar values has always struck me as a somewhat tenuous exercise, though seemingly exact and professional. To begin with, damages go up and down with currency crosses. Damages in China will have increased exponentially with the economic juggernaut of the past 35 years. In the US properties have appreciated tremendously with low interest policies since 2000. As an area is more intensely populated with more infrastructure, the damages increase commensurately, although affected areas are of course randomly targeted, making the damage amount random as well. In third world countries such as Mozambique or India where a lettuce costs 2¢, a hotel swept away is worth only 1% of what the same structure would cost in the USA.
In short, dollar price forms a somewhat inadequate measure to express impacts and damage; and as such a relatively inappropriate yardstick for assessing the increasing impact of weather catastophes with a climate-change backdrop. -
ubrew12 at 12:33 PM on 22 December 2020More CO2 in the atmosphere hurts key plants and crops more than it helps
Concern: "We're going to lose New Orleans, Houston, Charleston, New York, Atlantic City, Boston, Virginia Beach, Shanghai, Jakarta, Osaka, Hong Kong, Alexandria, Rio, Miami, Bangkok, Venice, Ho Chi Minh, Mumbai, Dhaka, Basra, Tokyo, Rotterdam, and Lagos."
Counter: "But the Corn will be loving it!"
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BaerbelW at 20:25 PM on 20 December 2020The Little Ape That Could
The new article Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass published in Nature on Dec. 9 is related to this blog post. Here is the link to the write-up in Scientific American from where the complete article can be accessed:
Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass
Humanity has become a dominant force in shaping the face of Earth. An emerging question is how the overall material output of human activities compares to the overall natural biomass. Here we quantify the human-made mass, referred to as ‘anthropogenic mass’, and compare it to the overall living biomass on Earth, which currently equals approximately 1.1 teratonnes. We find that Earth is exactly at the crossover point; in the year 2020 (±6), the anthropogenic mass, which has recently doubled roughly every 20 years, will surpass all global living biomass. On average, for each person on the globe, anthropogenic mass equal to more than his or her bodyweight is produced every week. This quantification of the human enterprise gives a mass-based quantitative and symbolic characterization of the human-induced epoch of the Anthropocene.
Authors: Emily Elhacham, Liad Ben-Uri, Jonathan Grozovski, Yinon M. Bar-On & Ron Milo
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nigelj at 07:32 AM on 19 December 2020Analysis: When might the world exceed 1.5C and 2C of global warming?
Just some related information. Hadcrut have apparently changed how they evaluate things and their temperature record now looks much more like NASA GISS:
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/12/an-ever-more-perfect-dataset/
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Doug Bostrom at 04:32 AM on 19 December 2020Analysis: When might the world exceed 1.5C and 2C of global warming?
In trade for dealing with awkward Highchart graphs we get to view datapoints.
A scrolling graph automatically means we can't see the big picture.
Tables are for viewing datapoints. Graphs are for seeing the big picture.
Combining tables and graphs leads to "doesn't do either thing very well."
As well, there are severe portability problems with these graphs.
Sorry, I know this is "circumstances beyond our control" but if the wheel never squeaks, it'll never be oiled. :-)
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Doug Bostrom at 08:50 AM on 18 December 2020Emphasizing 'opportunity' to help bridge divide on climate action
"The supporting materials forming the basis of an opportunities-oriented climate change communications strategy are there for the asking. Now it’s up to effective communicators to champion those messages."
Yes.
Excellent synopsis.
It's only modernization. Handled correctly, modernization is good.
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John Hartz at 12:15 PM on 17 December 2020A 50-Year-Old Global Warming Forecast That Still Holds Up
Doug: Bob Loblaw's answer to the question I posed to him was more than adequate for my needs. He told me more than searching Hansen's references would have revealed.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:45 AM on 17 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
As Bob Loblaw points out the debate about "exact causes - Certainty" can be a Misleading Game.
The comments I provided @5, and 6 are part of a more fundamental understanding - Understanding that every human interaction is a Game. Game Theory is an established field of improving understanding for a reason.
Getting drawn into a debate about “direct or indirect human induced climate change causes of harmful results” can be a misleading distraction from the development of a Common Sense Understanding of what is going on and what needs to change.
It is important to not let a potential Harmful Cheater Frame the Game. A selfish person will try to set “Rules or Terms” based on Beliefs that are “evidence-free” misleading appealing Nonsense. A harmful selfish cheater will not be able to base their position on all of the evidence regarding what is required for humanity to develop a lasting and improving future. That improving Common Sense Understanding of what is going on and what needs to happen is well presented in the UN Human Development Report 2020 “The next frontier: Human development and the Anthropocene” (the UNDP HDRs have been written annually since 1990). Any Game Play that involves misleading Nonsense interferes with the ability of humanity to achieve a Common Sense evidence-based understanding of how to reduce harm being done and improve helpfulness to Others (especially helping, not harming, the future generations).
Keep the axiom “Cheaters Never Prosper” in mind at all times. It is a bit misleading, and exposes the risks of trying to be brief. Language is the basis for understanding. And some people try to claim that the potential diversity of interpretation of language makes everything ever communicated a misunderstanding. They claim everyone’s developed understanding is equally valid – essentially claiming there can be no such thing as Common Sense Understanding. That is Nonsense except for the Understanding that Harmful Selfish Believers of Nonsense will have a hard time acquiring a Common Sense Understanding of what is going on. They have to give up their developed (indoctrinated) passionately held Nonsense Beliefs in order to get to Common Sense Understanding of what is really going on.
Back to “Cheaters Never Prosper”. It states a Certainty that does not accurately represent reality (and some people really like Certainty – even if it is Nonsense). Cheaters actually can and do Prosper to the detriment of Others. The declaration uses brevity and appeals to emotion in its incorrect claim making. It sounds Right – somehow Harmful Cheaters are always stopped (nothing for the average person to try to do anything about – an Invisible Hand will take care of it – or some helpful Others will try to clean up the mess). And an incorrect extension of that belief is that “Good Results will develop if People are Freer to compete for status doing as they please based on what they choose to believe, with less external interference (Less External Governing, less effort to “educate”). The HDR 2020 clarifies that Free Agency of all humans to pursue their interests in helpful harmless ways is the responsible freedom that is required. And it requires that “Harmful Cheaters do not Prosper”, which is an effort that everyone everywhere has a responsibility and ability to participate in at all times into the future.
Back again to “Cheaters Never Prosper”. It is harmful because it is a potential distraction from the truer statement which is “Harmful Cheaters Should Not Be Allowed Proper”. That statement represents the reality that harmful cheaters can and do prosper, but should not be allowed to. The clarified longer statement also aligns with “improving the ability of humanity to achieve a Common Sense evidence-based understanding of how to end harm being done and improve helpfulness”.
A lasting and improving future for humanity can be developed. But it requires that harmful selfish people not be allowed to Frame The Game of Discussing what is important. Language can be messy. Take the extra time to reflect on whether the discussion being entered into is Framed in a Helpful way. Discussions of the minutia of a global issue like the future of humanity need to always keep the over-all objective of reducing harm and increasing helpfulness in mind – to help achieve the ideal of “Cheaters Never Prosper”.
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Doug Bostrom at 15:26 PM on 16 December 2020A 50-Year-Old Global Warming Forecast That Still Holds Up
John, not exactly "off hand" but maybe worth checking references in Hansen's work?
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Bob Loblaw at 12:27 PM on 16 December 2020A 50-Year-Old Global Warming Forecast That Still Holds Up
John: interesting question. The Budyko-Sellers type models were one-dimensional, looking only at total horizontal energy transport between the equator and poles. (Well, essentialy from pole to pole - the northern and southern hemispheres are not exactly symmetrical.) They considered four energy fluxes:
- Vertical radiation balance (absorbed solar - emitted IR) as a function of latitude. This is essentially top-of-atmosphere, but the models had no vertical dimension or resolution, so IR emissions were a function of surface temperature. (Horizontal radiation transfer can be ignored.)
- North-south transport of atmospheric sensible heat: the energy transfer associated with atmospheric circulation and the temperature of the air.
- North-south transport of atmospheric latent heat: energy associated with atmospheric circulation of water vapour, evaporating water at one latitude and condensing at another.
- North-south transport of ocean sensible heat: ocean circulation and temperatures.
The Budyko-Sellers models used empirical equations that related energy transport to temperature, and did not explicitly have any atmospheric motion or weather. The output provides a latitude-averaged state: you can see the differences in flux and temperature as a function of latitude, but there is no east-west information.The idea is that the equator/pole differences in radiation balance (item 1) are what drives atmospheric circulation and climate differnces - energy needs to get from the equator to the poles to balance (items 2-4).
Hansen's early work, IIRC, used either one-dimensional radiative-convective models (RCM) or full three-dimensional atmospheric general circulation models (GCM).
The RCMs have only a vertical component and do full radiative transfer calculations - but for a globally-averaged state. They have no equator or pole or anything in between.The radiation transfer calculations can be very sophisticated, though.
The 3-D GCM models are like weather models (but very coarse resolution in the early days), so they include N-S changes, E-W differences, and the vertical structure of the atmosphere - and actually calculate atmospheric circulation over time. The model "climate" is the time-averaged model output, just like real climate is time-averaged weather.
So, no Hansen would not have been basing his work directly on Budyko. The modelling approach are quite different - but they all give interesting information about different aspects of climate. The earliest published work that I know of for RCMs was that of Manabe and Strickler (1964) and Manabe and Wetherald (1967), Manabe also moved from RCMs to GCMs. GCMs are loosely based on weather models.
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John Hartz at 10:05 AM on 16 December 2020A 50-Year-Old Global Warming Forecast That Still Holds Up
Bob Loblaw: Do you know off-hand whether James Hansen incorporated any of Budyko's work into his initial modeling efforts?
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Bob Loblaw at 05:48 AM on 15 December 2020A 50-Year-Old Global Warming Forecast That Still Holds Up
Budyko was definitely one of the early people that contributed a lot to modern climatology. I was exposed to his work as an undergrad in the late 1970s.
His 1969 paper, listed above, introduced a particular class of one-dimensional climate models that ended up being described as a Budyko-Sellers type energy balance model. Sellers developed a similar approach in a paper also published in 1969:
"A Global Climatic Model Based on the Energy Balance of the Earth-Atmosphere System", Journal of Applied Meteorology, 8, 392-400.
https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1969)008%3C0392:AGCMBO%3E2.0.CO;2
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Bob Loblaw at 12:21 PM on 14 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
The "primary" vs. "secondary" or "direct" vs "indirect" cause thing is a bit of a red herring, but people in denial will use it as an excuse to pretend that climate change is not causing Bad Things (tm). "Show me how climate change is the direct cause of (X)."
Forest fires require three things:
- A source of ignition (lightning, cigarette butts, electrical sparks, etc.)
- A source of small, easily-ignited material (dry twigs, vegetation, duff layer on soil surface, etc.)
- A large source of dry material to grow the fire - trees, etc.
The initial spark might be the "direct" cause of the fire, but changing items 2 or 3 will change the forest's fire regime.
Although analogies are always limited, an analogy is criminal trial for arson. Two people, one of whom spread gasoline around the building, and a second that lit the match - which one is the "direct" cause of the fire?
- "I only lit a match. That's not enough to cause a fire."
- "I only spilled some gasoline. That wasn't the direct cause of the fire."
I'll bet both are convicted.
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Synapsid at 07:11 AM on 14 December 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49, 2020
Two journals to add:
Nature (a weekly)
Nature Geoscience (a monthly)
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nigelj at 05:41 AM on 14 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
John, MS Sweet
I recall reading some years ago that there is evidence that climate change is already leading to more lightening strikes in some places, and so essentially more forest fires. I did a quick google and found these studies here and here. So I agree you could argue climate change is a direct cause of at least some forest fires.
Of course it might be impossible to say that a specific forest fire was started by a lightening strike that happened because of climate change, but you could say its was xyz probability more likely to have happened due to climate change. And that climate change is causing more forest fires to occur.
That said, most forest fires would be stared by arson or "business as usual" lightning strikes, and climate change is basically making them worse in terms of areas burned. Although warmer conditions might mean dry timber is more likely to catch fire, so I guess you could say climate change is an "indirect cause" of those fires.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:40 AM on 14 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
There is an important understanding related to my comment @5.
Regional perceptions of benefits from the rapid human induced climate change should not be allowed to be used to regionally promote rapid human induced climate change as a Good Thing.
The Utilitarian thinking of accounting for Overall Harm and Benefits is dangerous. It can lead to harmful justifications based on perceptions that "Personal benefits, or regional benefits, or benefits for a sub-set of humanity" out-weigh and justify the "Perceptions of harm done by the actions".
People "wanting something" can be very biased in their evaluation of the acceptability of their actions in pursuit of what they want. Like most scientists, as a professional engineer I had to learn to be constantly aware of the danger of "wanting a result" or the harmful threat of ignoring or understating the potential harm of a design result. Very few people actually have that degree of 'training'. Many people are easily impressed to believe that Their Perception of Benefit out-weighs Their Perception of Harm Done when they like or want something.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:02 AM on 14 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
The evaluation of direct or indirect 'cause' may not matter.
The real issue is "Harm Done by human activity".
The research appears to support the understanding that "The rapid climate change due to human actions is Increasing Harmful Results in many ways".
And the focus on "Harm Done" can be extended to all the other "Harm Done" by fossil fuel use, especially the harm done by pursuits of wealth from fossil fuel use because, like all other business activity, "It is cheaper to get away with harmful actions. And cheaper and more profitable is more likely to be popular, increasing popular support to resist ending the profitable and popular activity"
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michael sweet at 00:08 AM on 14 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
John:
I think you have a good point. How do we decide what is a "cause" and what is an inderect cause.
What if a lightning strike ignites a fire in Siberia. 50 years ago that fire might burn out after 10 acres were burned. Today the fires in Siberia are gigantic. Was the gigantic fire caused by climate change since before the change it would not have happened at all? The same is true in Australia, California and other locations worldwide. The gigantic fires have no precedent.
It seems to me that the claim that gigantic fires are caused by climate change stands even though the initial fire was ignited by lightning (or more often ignited by humans).
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John Hartz at 07:12 AM on 13 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
Doug: A lot hinges on how one defines the word, "cause" and whether one has used the adjectives "direct" and "indirect" to motify the word "cause."
For example, I believe a fairly good argument could be made that a California wildfire started by a bolt of lightening from a massive T-storm could have been indirectly cused by dlimate change. (All weather occurs in the ambient climate sysem.) It would be much more dificult to argue that the wildfire was directly caused by climate change. This dinstinction is, in my mind, similar to the distinction made between "primary" and "secondary" environmnetal impacts as determined in an Environmental Impact Statement say for the construciton of a new highway.
On the other hand, I may be "over thinking" this issue. :)
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Doug Bostrom at 05:22 AM on 13 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
Per Nigel's remark, a sampling of our imperfect tracking of research output on this, from this year alone:
- Vegetation response to wildfire and climate forcing in a Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine forest over the past 2500 years
- Climate change significantly alters future wildfire mitigation opportunities in southeastern Australia
- Past variance and future projections of the environmental conditions driving western U.S. summertime wildfire burn area
- Wildfire risk science facilitates adaptation of fire-prone social-ecological systems to the new fire reality
- Large wildfires in the western US exacerbated by tropospheric drying linked to a multi‐decadal trend in the expansion of the Hadley circulation
- Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme autumn wildfire conditions across California
- Increasing concurrence of wildfire drivers tripled megafire critical danger days in Southern California between1982 and 2018
- Applying intersectionality to climate hazards
- Projected Changes in Reference Evapotranspiration in California and Nevada
- Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Live Fuel Moisture and Wildfire Risk Using a Hydrodynamic Vegetation Model
- The Australian wildfires from a systems dependency perspective
So yeah, climate affects wildfires. And it does seem true: if all the signals from science are "wildfire is affected by climate" yet it's a common misunderstanding that climate isn't related, there must be a reason for that.
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nigelj at 05:54 AM on 12 December 2020Climate Change's Cause Confusion
How hard can it be to see that climate change doesn't cause forest fires, but makes them worse? Virtually anyone should be able to understand this. The cause confusion people have mostly looks deliberate to me. Anything to avoid confronting reality.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:37 AM on 6 December 2020Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes Video - 2020 edition
Wilt:
Regarding your first point, keep i mind that large bodies of water in the Northern hemisphere, such as Hudson's Bay and the Great Lakes, already go through seasonal cycles from ice-free to substatially ice-covered. Even an "ice-free" Arctic Ocean will have a lot of ice for a lot of the year.
https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/#historical
Yes, penetration of solar radiation into open water is a primary mechanism of feedback for additional warming. Maximum solar radaiation is on June 21, though - not in September when the ice minimum will (most likely continue to) occur.
As for point #2: RealCimate has freqently dicussed the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and it's potential climate effects. A search there for AMOC turns up several posts over the years. The most recent one is:
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wilt at 07:12 AM on 5 December 2020Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes Video - 2020 edition
Thanks for the thoughtful responses my catastrophic thinking. 2 things are still stuck in my brain though.
I recall it pointed out somewhere that at some point on the progression to zero summer ice it is likely to reach the point of a reduced enough ice cover to quickly and dramatically raise arctic temperatures by exposing enough uncovered ocean to sunlight which absorbs 10 times the heat of ice thus rapidly melting much more ice until the sun gets far enough south to let it grow again. That would probably begin a viscous cycle of rapidly increasing ice free periods, and probably start well before the zero September ice that the current progression indicates would be at a maximum of 12 years from now.
#2 A small enough amount of summer ice would likely stop amoc as the large variability displayed in the following chart seems to indicate is very possible; "Full array OSNAP east OSNAP west" chart, (the chart is about 3/4 of the way down this page): https://www.carbonbrief.org/major-study-uncovers-sea-change-in-worlds-understanding-of-atlantic-conveyor-belt.
Perhaps a complete ice free bit in the summer and its resultant halt of the primary driver of amoc would not disrupt amoc significantly or permanently, but it would seem likely that as the ice free periods extended it would.
So it would seem likely that in twelve years give or take we could be seeing a collapse of amoc and the resultant (by everyones descriptions of what a halted amoc would cause) catastrophe.
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Joel_Huberman at 00:54 AM on 5 December 2020How declining ice in clouds makes high ‘climate sensitivity’ plausible
Thanks for your interesting, clear explanation!
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MA Rodger at 06:52 AM on 4 December 2020CO2 measurements are suspect
Ken the Bear @94,
I don't think the drop in emissions from Covid will be anyway near enough to register a change that will be noticed in the Keeling Curve.
Recent annual CO2 increases measured at MLO as measured by ESRL run 2010-19 +2.32ppm, +1.91ppm, +2.61ppm, +2.01ppm, +2.20ppm, +2.95ppm, +3.01ppm, +1.90ppm, +2.86ppm, +2.46ppm. Those numbers have a 90% range of +/-0.8ppm. It seems most folk are still awaiting better understanding of the effect of Covid on emissions before making an assessment on the matter but one estimate of the drop in rising CO2 levels due to Covid has been given as between 0.08ppm & 0.23ppm. So not enough to make a noticeable dent.
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Ken The Bear at 06:11 AM on 4 December 2020CO2 measurements are suspect
When should we expect to see the global downturn in carbon emissions register on the Keeling Curve?
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Rob Honeycutt at 13:11 PM on 3 December 2020Fighting climate change: Cheaper than 'business as usual' and better for the economy
Another coming element to battery storage is going to be second-life EV batteries. Once these are depleted to the point where they aren't useful in a vehicle, there is a very long second life for them on the grid.
It also deserves mentioning that not all the FF sources of energy on the grid coming in at levelized costs. Peaker plants will often run only a few days a year and their cost of energy is pretty high.
There are many more complex elements to this topic than Steve seems to be aware of.
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Doug Bostrom at 07:24 AM on 3 December 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2020
Thanks Dawei. For some reason URLs from AMS were truncated in RSS feed. - I'd better recheck all of 'em.
Article name URL is preserved for purpose of recording details of original provenance. At least we now know that the DOI scheme for long term access works. :-)
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nigelj at 06:12 AM on 3 December 2020Fighting climate change: Cheaper than 'business as usual' and better for the economy
Yes the criticisms of the article by Steve 1) dont demonstrate that the issues he raises aren't already allowed for in the analysis and 2) dont provide any other actual research information. Its fair to say wind and solar power do rely on storage, but costs of storage are dropping fast. The sceptics just dont keep up with this.
My understanding is for storage to be fully economic it needs to be about $20 kwhr and lithium is up around $150 kwhr presently (its expected to drop further). But someone called engineer poet recently mentioned sulphur flow batteries, and I just googled them, and they are around $20 kwhr right now. This makes them very economically viable for up to about one days storage at least and of course costs would drop further if they are scaled up. I dont have time to dig into more detail around the storage issue, but heres the commentary on the batteries.
In addition solar power is now so cheap you can over build the resource to deal with intermittency issues as well as using some storage.
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Dawei at 06:05 AM on 3 December 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2020
The link for Changes in Observed Daily Precipitation over Global Land Areas since 1950 is broken, but the DOI link works.
Maybe the URL behind the paper title should just be the DOI URL? :) -
Bob Loblaw at 00:19 AM on 3 December 2020Fighting climate change: Cheaper than 'business as usual' and better for the economy
It is easy to note that SteveW does not cite a single source to support any of his assertions. It's the usual "it isn't happening, it's natural, it's not bad, it will cost too much" diatribe.
The "Most Used Climate Myths" section on the upper left of the SkS web page will lead people to information on each of the myths that are imbedded in SteveW's assertions. I wonder how SteveW missed that?
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SteveW at 23:44 PM on 2 December 2020Fighting climate change: Cheaper than 'business as usual' and better for the economy
This article is a laughable mishmash of disinformation. To cite a few:The "levelized" costs referenced do not include most costs needed to integrate solar or wind power into an industrial economy such as transmission costs and storage needed to ensure baseload power during times these variable source of electricity just don't work. These actual very real costs can and do easily exceed the costs included. The supposed "savings" from limiting temperature rise, even if such a thing were possible, are illusory. One can easily find that there has been NO increase in hurricane, flooding, fires or extreme weather events over the last 50 years so all the tremendous "costs" these flawed analysis attribute to "curing" this mirage will be nonexistent.
Basically the article prevaricates in the interest of supporting an unsupportable narrative and this should tell you all you need to know about how much "prrof" exists supporting these savings! The authors can make all the scary maps they choose showing half the country in a fiery red color but that doesn't change the facts that there are very little downside to a slightly warming climate but that there are numerous benefits. Interesting isn't it that they completely fail to add in the "negative damages" (normally called benefits) that even their flawed charts show much of the country to be "suffering"? Wonder how they missed this point?
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Sloganeering and off-topic snipped.
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Gerard.Bisshop at 16:28 PM on 30 November 2020CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration
Sorry MA Rodger, I just did the sums on the remaining fraction loss for this and previous years and it is as you said in your earlier post - the remaining fraction adds up to be (1-) the sum of losses in all previous emission years - problem solved!
thanks for your help.
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Gerard.Bisshop at 12:31 PM on 30 November 2020CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration
Thankyou MA Rodger for your time responding to this query, it's greatly appreciated.
I have a follow on question. Regarding the influence of size of emission on the CO2 response function, it appears from Figure 7 of Joos et al 2013 that a pulse equivalent to one year's emissions follows a very similar path to the 10 year equivalent pulse above (at least for the first decade or so), indicating that the remaining fraction from the pulse is close to 100% (maybe 90%) in the first year after emission.
As time goes by, the CO2 pulse removal from the atmosphere slows. So in the initial decade, almost 40% is removed, and in the 9th decade, only a few % are removed. So a cumulative removal curve of all previous years would be more heavily influenced by removal of recent emissions.
Which brings me to my question - given that Joos et al 2013 shows removal of recent emissions to be less than 10% in the first year, and in subsequent years removal drops at a lesser rate, I can only conclude that all the CO2 response functions start with the pulse already-discounted by the airborne fraction.
Obviously, this is not an issue for climate models, that deal only in atmospheric concentrations, and from what I can make out, the IPCC representative pathways that link emissions with future warming also use response function equations something like Joos et al 2013, that do not seem to discount emissions, but deal in atmospheric concentrations.
I'm sorry to labour this, and there may be a simple explanation, but I am struggling to find it, and it seems critical to my understanding the relationship between CO2 and other gases.
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MA Rodger at 17:35 PM on 28 November 2020Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes Video - 2020 edition
Wilt @2&3,
While we should not be surprised by the appearance of sub-million sq km Arctic Sea Ice minimums (=ice-free) starting sometime in the 2030s (& there has been a fair old kerfuffle with folk suggesting it could be sooner), the usual concern of ice melt and the AMOC is the melt run-off from Greenland which has increased by perhaps 30% in recent decades. (Note this is the increase in gross run-off. The net ice loss (run-off minus snowfall are the more dramatic values we usually see.)
The increased Greenland melt very roughly results in an extra 300Gt of cold fresh water discharged into the oceans which is a tiny change when compared to the 15,000Gt of cold fresh water resulting from the annual melt of the northern sea ice, a level of annual melt that has remained unchanged over the last 40 years. And the arrival of an ice-free summer minimums Arctic Ocean won't immediately change that 15,000Gt melt cycle, not until the arrival of an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the early summer and through to the autumn.
While the AMOC is driven in the most fundamental way by the freezing polar temperatures, its sensitivity to changes in salinity and these cold fresh water inflows is quite local and the Greenland discharge into Labrador & Nordic Seas is the very point of sensitivity.
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Bob Loblaw at 08:48 AM on 28 November 2020Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes Video - 2020 edition
Wilt:
Forecasting the "end of ice" is not that simple, and a linear extrapolation is probably not realistic. And although reaching that summer ice-free point will be major, I'd hesitate to call it "catastrophic".
What is your definition of "catastrophic"?
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wilt at 06:49 AM on 28 November 2020Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes Video - 2020 edition
PS: Just to be clear, I meant why is this not talked about in the media, not in the above presentation.
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wilt at 06:27 AM on 28 November 2020Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes Video - 2020 edition
Am I missing something on this? If you extend that line out there would be zero summer ice in about twelve years. As near as I can tell from a quick search, the arctic ice is assumed to be the major driver of the ocean conveyor belt (which is already slowing down). It would seem then that in twelve years or probably less would be global catastrophic climate change. If so why is this not talked about?
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Wol at 18:10 PM on 26 November 2020Gas-powered cars: Beginning of the end in California?
>>Still, the executive order only sets goals for 2035 and 2045. And it will still allow people to drive gas-powered automobiles after 2035, and also sell used ones. In other words, internal combustion engines aren’t disappearing anytime soon after 2035.<<
...but just where is the gas coming from? After the tipping point most gas stations will be non- viable after a year or two through lack of customers and it will then be the ICE cars' drivers looking for fuel - ironically the issue supposedly a problem now for EVs!
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alan northcutt at 02:00 AM on 26 November 2020Gas-powered cars: Beginning of the end in California?
As someone who has been driving an EV for about 4 years now (Bolt & Model 3) I think its a myth that EVs are too expensive. With federal and state incentives, one can purchase a new Mini Cooper for around $20K, a Leaf for about $22K and a crossover Kia Niro for around $30K. And the new Chinese Kandi will start in the US for around $12K after tax credit. Although policy is more important than individual action, I think individuals who care about climate should drive electric if possible. Of course mass transit is preferable, but many areas, like here in Texas, have minimal mass transit.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:43 AM on 25 November 2020Gas-powered cars: Beginning of the end in California?
GM has just reversed its previous opposition to the California initiative.
"GM Stops Backing Trump Administration in Emissions Fight With California" - WSJ
One of the nastiest things humans develop is sub-groups pursuing power through Fascist Politics, like the Republican Party do. The power of fascist politics to harm Others was probably a major factor in the original GM decision. Not only could GM investors benefit from not having to rapidly change its production, GM could avoid the harmful wrath of the powerful likes of Trump.
"How Fascism Works" by Jason Stanley, is a comprehensive presentation of the political influence mechanisms that can be employed by harmful pursuers of Power. And many of the mechanisms can be seen to be employed by people opposed to Climate Science and the related understanding of the need to rapidly end the global use of fossil fuels, especially the opposition to the expectation that the largest beneficiaries from fossil fuel use lead the rapid transition from fossil fuel use and help the less fortunate deal with harm that has already been done and help them improve their lives with the least possible use of fossil fuels as a temporary transition to sustainable improved living.
As stated in the "2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47" - Editor's Choice article there has been an extensive and diverse history of 'market failures' that 'improvements of the system' would help limit. The catch is that the problem is more than the economic system. A major part of the problem is the social-political environment that the economic system operates in. Changing the Social-political environment is what is required.
The harm done by competition for status in a materialism consumerism focused market driven by popularity and profit is a result of the developed sociopolitical systems. The type of sociopolitical system matters the most when it comes to getting helpful results out of the economic system.
Keeping harmful results from being produced by the economic system requires Governing to limit what is allowed to compete. The evidence appears to indicate that 'harmful unsustainable activity' has a competitive advantage if it can be gotten away with (it is easier and cheaper than the alternatives). And getting away with harm requires the harm to be hidden, or be ignored, or be dismissed, or have people pointing it out be discredited ... all to develop and maintain perceptions of, or opportunity for, higher status relative to Others. And higher status relative to Others can be harmfully pursued by "Fascist politics".
People fighting for Climate Action are fighting to reduce the harm done by pursuers of Personal Benefit who do not care if they are harmful to Others. The proponents of the need to rapidly end the use of fossil fuels need to also help rapidly end the success of harmful pursuits of power and status by groups that want Superiority over Others, especially when those groups use fascist politics - groups using fascist politics will claim 'to be the victim' of limits to harm done.
Harm Done never justifies Personal Benefits Obtained no matter what non-sense the harmful pursuers of Impressions of Superiority claim. The development of evidence-based constantly improving Common Sense understanding to end harm being done and improve helpful actions is the way to develop a lasting improving future for humanity. Try to keep that 'Top of Mind' is the massive deluge of non-sense messing-up pursuits of understanding what is going on.
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John Hartz at 06:39 AM on 20 November 2020Human Fingerprints on Climate Change Rule Out Natural Cycles
In the context of the OP, would it appropriate to include Catastrophic Weather Events as an Indicator of the Human Fingerprint of Climate Change? Ditto for the Melting Cyrosphere.
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