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Eclectic at 19:16 PM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @35 ,
it is important to think logically & scientifically about the problems being examined ~ without having the numbers distract you away from critical thinking.
Go to the IUCN website, and you will read that the IUCN does not state the total & absolute numbers of species extinctions as being 869 (or similar number). The IUCN gives various caveats about why the true number of extinctions must be far larger than the number you have mentioned. Which should have been obvious to you !
To examine the "distractions" further, I strongly suggest the examples to be found on Dr Judith Curry's blogsite ClimateEtc. Go to ClimateEtc and look up Nic Lewis as a salient example. Lewis is a good statistician but a poor scientist.
A contrast (found elsewhere) is "Tamino", who is good at statistics and good at scientific thinking.
The proper purpose of statistics is to illuminate the science of the underlying realities of this universe ~ not to obfuscate the scientific approach to understanding nature.
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gseattle at 15:24 PM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
"whether you accept or deny these statements about the modelling"
I searched for an equation for awhile. Without understanding the models, I don't know. Closest was this at Harvard by two who developed a model. I can't easily show their equation here, it would require an image.
Does anyone have a link to one of the extinction models used showing their equation?
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Bob Loblaw at 11:20 AM on 11 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @ 152:
So many basic errors.
- No carbon cycle descriptions or modelling do not assume steady state or equilibrium. They iinclude reservoirs of carbon, and fluxes between reservoirs, and all can vary with time.
- "Pumping capacity" is a meaningless term. All reservoirs have multiple fluxes in and out of them, and those fluxes are the result of a variety of factors. There is no single "pumping capacity".
- Fluxes are not the result of the size of the reservoir. For example, soil carbon is lost to the atmosphere by decomposition, and this is highly dependent on temperature and biological activity. In tropical forests, carbon added to the soil by dying vegetation is rapidly decomposed and retruns to the atmosphere. The soils reservoir has little carbon because the flux is so high. In contrast, colder climates like the boreal forest accumulate large carbon stores because decomposition is very slow.
- MA Rdoger has already pointed out your egregious logic error in claiming that a 70 kg person is a carbon source of 100 kg/year. If a person remains at 70kg, then whatever flux of carbon to the atmosphere is being exactly balance by an uptake in carbon from other sources.
- An increase in the human population means an increase in carbon storage. See point #4.
Your post is a distorted, misguided, uninformed outpouring. It bears little resemblance to reality.
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nigelj at 08:10 AM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @35, the 200 per day are based on modelling, because its known that its very difficult to pick up true numbers of extinctions by observation alone. The modelling is probably too high but the true numbers are likely much higher than 1.67 per year. All this has been explained to you up thread.
You do not indicate whether you accept or deny these statements about the modelling. You say you are interersted in science but one of the principles of scientific process is you have to be specific about what things you agree with and what you disagree with and why and with what evidence. If you cannot do this you have no place in the discussion. So shape up or go away.
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MA Rodger at 02:57 AM on 11 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @152,
Perhaps you don't understand the concept of a 'cycle' when you talk of the 'carbon cycle'. Let me explain. The carbon moves from A to B to C to D and then, likely back to A again. That is a 'cycle'. It goes round and round.
Now you are saying that a 70Kg human emits 100kg carbon a year. Given the weight of the annual carbon emission is greater than the weight of the human emitting, it should be telling you that the carbon must be coming from somewhere and into the human to allow the human to emit such a quantity. Within the waffle you present @152 I fail to see where you account for how humans source all this carbon. And until you do account for it, your attempts to analyse the impact of an increasing human population on atmospheric CO2 levels will remain no more than waffle.
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Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
You can’t use the carbon cycle to prove that human respiration isn’t increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere because the carbon cycle only describes the steady state. As others have already noted, the human population has grown exponentially over the last 100 years. It has almost quadrupled since 1920. That is not a system operating in the steady state or at long-term equilibrium.
To put it simply, the carbon cycle describes five carbon reservoirs (vegetation, animals, soil, the ocean and the atmosphere) all of which also act as carbon pumps. Moreover, these five reservoirs are all interconnected, and the pumping capacity of each depends on their size. Generally, the bigger they are, the more carbon they pump. That means that changing the size of one will change the size of all the others in order to balance pumping rates and conservation of mass. This will happen as the system seeks to find a new equilibrium position. So an increase in the human population affects everything else. It changes the pumping rates and it changes the relative size of the other reservoirs. And the thing is, we can estimate what size this change might be.
As the average 70 kg person generates about 1 kg of CO2 per day, that means they transfer 100 kg of carbon to the atmosphere every year. With nearly 8 billion people on the planet that equates to about 0.8 GtC per annum (GtC = gigatonne of carbon).
But that is not all. The average person probably eats their own bodyweight in meat every year. So the growth in the human population since 1920 must be reflected in the growth in the number of farm livestock. If we assume 2 kg of livestock per 1 kg of human (i.e. a 2 year supply of meat in production), then the overall CO2 production from both is 2.4 GtC per annum. This is about a quarter of our fossil fuel CO2 output. So is this directly increasing atmospheric CO2 levels as some climate deniers might claim? The answer is no, or at least not directly.
Some people have suggested that the increases in human and livestock CO2 emissions are offset by increased crop production. Their argument is that, as all the carbon we breathe out comes from crops, any increase in the CO2 produced by the human population will be offset by a commensurate increase in crop production required to feed the extra humans and their livestock. This is not true either.
Increased crop production comes at the expense of other types of vegetation (e.g. forests). The total area under human cultivation may increase, but the total amount of land and vegetation won’t. Deforestation in the Amazon region to grow crops and farm cattle does not increase the rate of CO2 capture in the region. If anything, it decreases it.
Increasing the number of animals does not increase the amount of vegetation or its growth rate. Instead it decreases the amount of carbon going into the soil. Animals eat plants before those plant can die and before they can decay in the soil. This means that animals replace the CO2 producing capacity of the soil. That is where the substitution occurs. And if the pumping efficiencies of both animals and the soil were the same then nothing much would change as the animal population increases. But they aren’t the same.
The carbon pumping efficiency of the soil is only 4%. The soil contains over 1500 GtC but emits 60 GtC per annum. Humans store only 0.1 GtC but emit 0.8GtC per annum. That is an efficiency of 800%. It also means that the increase in CO2 production from humans and livestock is the same as that produced by about 4% of the Earth’s soil. That means that the total volume of soil must reduce by 4% over time as its pumping capacity is replaced by animals and as the volume of carbon entering the soil decreases. So 60 GtC will be lost from the soil while only 0.1 GtC will be transferred to animals and none to plants. There is only one other place that most of the 59.9 GtC can go: the atmosphere. This 59.9 GtC will increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 30 ppm.
So the human population increase could have increased atmospheric CO2 levels by up to 30 ppm over time, and about 20 ppm since 1920. Is this an upper estimate? Yes, probably. It assumes that the growth in the human population and farming livestock is a net gain and does not merely substitute for loss of other species. But we know this is not true. Humans and their livestock do displace other creatures to some extent. It also omits any additional loss of CO2 to the oceans and changes to vegetation volumes through loss of soil and increases in CO2. But what it does demonstrate is that when the human population changes, everything else changes.
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Doug Bostrom at 02:01 AM on 11 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2020
Duly noted, Dawei. :-)
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gseattle at 01:15 AM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
By the way here are some credentials for Dr. Edwin X Berry if anyone is interested.
On topic is Greta, extinctions numbers:
Greta says 200 per day, or 73,000 per year.
IUCN says 869 since year 1500. That's 1.67 per year.
Eclectic called the numbers a distraction.
Perhaps that means, in this case, nevermind science, the exact numbers don't matter, so long as they are sufficiently scaring everybody into action.
Do the rest of you hold that basic viewpoint?
Wouldn't her message be mocked less if it were not imaginary? She could talk about the actual threatened species currently, a high number, wouldn't that be good? Would it not help round up more people into the cause who simply could not buy into her non-science claim? Wouldn't Greta Thunberg's reputation be better that way when people look back on this time from the future if we have one?
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic and sloganeering snipped. Please stay on-topic.
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Dawei at 14:18 PM on 10 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2020
Thanks Doug! Would be cool to see the 'highlighted paper' feature every week.
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roflkopter at 11:58 AM on 10 September 2020Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
How neat is that, Mark was wrong about the global GDP growth into 2020, its actually significantly higher than what he said!
Moderator Response:[JH] Please provide the source of your information.
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scaddenp at 10:13 AM on 10 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle - "It was said Berry's arguments are "plainly wrong". Name one?"
"The IPCC agrees today’s annual human carbon dioxide emissions are 4.5 ppm per year and nature’s carbon dioxide emissions are 98 ppm per year. Yet, the IPCC claims human emissions have caused all the increase in carbon dioxide since 1750, which is 30 percent of today’s total."
Well the IPCC does not report emissions in ppm per year (that is weird and comes from what the IPCC actually reports which is in Gt per year). However, it is true that FF emissions are a fraction of natural emissions so what gives?
Notice that Berry doesnt directly reference where in the IPCC reports that his numbers come from. (Hard to imagine a peer reviewer that wouldnt insist on that). I wonder why? Well they come from Chpt 6 of the IPCC, nicely summarized in Fig 6.1.
Immediately obvious from the diagram is that not only are there natural emission, but there are natural sinks and they balance. ie Berry omits the important detail. CO2 (whatever its origin) is cycled naturally too, however our emissions overwhelm the balance. Man's emissions are responsible for of the Increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. His statement is a misrepresentation of the IPCC argument. If you had got your information from the IPCC or bothered to check his claim, then you would see that. As others have pointed out, there are independent ways (O2 depletion and isotopic composition) to verify that FF emissions are responsible for the increase.
So I read only half a paragraph of Berry. That was enough.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:11 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Some aspects of government simply must be kept secret - battle plans, undercover agents, etc. Government must have a clear indication of what each security level means, though - and a willingness to be open about that which is not really secret. Too often, Access to Information regulations are designed to help keep information away from people. An uninformed public is an easily-manipulated public.
OTOH, the media as a business enterprise is driven by what people want, and if people feel more comfortable with lies, that's what they'll seek out. A good read is over at the Baffler: "The Long Con"
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con
An older, long and mainly academic read on why people believe what they believe is available online from another person with years of study in this area: The Authoritarians provides a very interesting read. The initial web page currently displays a short article on "Why Do Trump’s Supporters Stand by Him, No Matter What?", but on the right of the page are links to the original book (from 2004) and a few follow-up articles.
From the "About" page:
Bob Altemeyer is a retired professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba, where he studied authoritarianism for forty years.
...and on the main page, one of the statements that I think applies to the topic here is:
Compared to most people, studies have shown that authoritarian followers get their beliefs and opinions from the authorities in their lives, and hardly at all by making up their own minds. They memorize rather than reason.
Honoring truth and encouraging truth can only work when the audience is willing and able to call out the lying authority figures in their lifes. Liars lie because it works - they can achieve their goals that way.
From a T.A.'s desk when I was an undergrad:
"To accept everything or reject everything is an equally-convenient solution: it disposes of the necessity of thinking about the issue."
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:20 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Part of the problem is the lack of awareness and lack of acceptance that there is a significant difference between "Belief" and "Understanding".
Anything can be Believed. Understanding requires evidence and the pursuit of the best explanation for all of the evidence.
The pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding restricts the available realm for Belief. But many people do not like "Being Restricted" in any way. Many people are growing up in societies based on 'Strict beliefs' or the 'Belief in increased freedom to believe what you want and do as you please' (Liberty without the responsibility to helpfully learn and self-govern to limit the harm done - which is Anarchy - which is not Helpful).
A significant part of that problem is due to people growing up trained (ideologically indoctrinated) to believe things that evidence contradicts. Their lack of interest in giving up on developed preferred beliefs can be seen to be a harmful resistance to many required corrections. One of their last-ditch actions is discrediting anyone who presents helpful expanded awareness and understanding - the denigration of "Real Knowledge Elites" - because in the made-up minds of harmful believers All Opinions are Equally Valid.
Clearly 'Better Understanding of how to help achieve and improve important objectives like the Sustainable Development Goals based on the evidence' Trumps any Alternative Belief. But some people refuse to accept that because it will not be to Their Advantage.
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JWRebel at 02:04 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Maybe there's a problem with the gate-keepers?
A lot of people are re-evaluating their trust in authorities in the light of conflicting reports, some of which seem a lot more plausible and probable than the spin we’re accustomed to.A big step up in confronting fake news would be to make secret services like the CIA and all the millions (yes) hiding behind ‘security’ claims as well as most other government/corporate memo’s public & transparent as soon as a policy is enacted. Secret government is a far bigger threat to ‘democracy’ than are internet whacko’s.
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nigelj at 18:21 PM on 8 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
I can't help but wonder if all this post truth problem is largely the internet giving a free voice to all the morons, extremists, ideologues and cranks in the world, resulting in one giant cacaphony of insanity.
However thank's for the good advice. It will however be challenging. Group loyalty is prized, so criticising your fellow group members comments or your own groups dogma can get a hostile reception.
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John ONeill at 16:35 PM on 8 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Preston Urka - post 202
..claims nuclear process heat could be supplied from 250 to 1200 degrees C, whereas solar can only manage to ~650 C.
Current lightwater reactors operate around 330C, which is too low for most industrial use. Waste heat has been used for district heating though, for example in Switzerland from the Beznau reactor, in Czechia, and in Russia.
Simpler, lower pressure reactors operating at only about 90C and used solely for district heating are being built in China, and could make a big difference to winter air quality in cities like Beijing. LINK
The BN350 reactor in Kazakhstan operated for 26 years providing both electricity and desalinated water. ( It closed mainly because, after the Soviet Union broke up, Kazakhstan could not afford the fuel.) This was a sodium cooled reactor, and so could operated at 200C hotter than a light water reactor. Bill Gates' Terrapower sodium-cooled reactor company has recently developed a variant on their design which would directly heat molten nitrate salts, as used in Concentrating Solar Power plants. This would give about the same temperature salt as solar, but with the advantages of not needing to be in a desert, not needing natural gas to heat the boilers up in the morning, and giving 24/7 heat regardless of cloud or season.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened and activated links.
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Tom Dayton at 02:55 AM on 8 September 2020It's internal variability
New article 2020/9/7, Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?
Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth energy imbalance (EEI) is the most critical number defining the prospects for continued global warming and climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming ocean, atmosphere and land; rising surface temperature; sea level; and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory and presents an updated assessment of ocean warming estimates as well as new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the period 1971–2018, with a total heat gain of 358±37 ZJ, which is equivalent to a global heating rate of 0.47±0.1 W m−2.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:28 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Rather than just deleting most of geattle's post a little up=thread, I accidentally delted the entire thing. Most of it was inappropriiate complaints about moderation, etc. This is what should have been left:
What would happen if....
[deletion]
It was said Berry's arguments are "plainly wrong". Name one? I'm not asking as a gotcha. I might be convinced too that he's bad if you can just give me some content. But all you do is say he's plainly wrong, oh yeah, very bad. That's not how science works my friends.
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Tom Dayton at 01:01 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
MA Rodger, thank you for the link to the Dave Andrews paper! Moderators, will you please invite Dave Andrews to write an SkS post summarizing his paper?
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Tom Dayton at 00:52 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle: ResearchGate is not a publisher. It is merely an online community that allows (annoyingly, constantly harrangues) its members to upload documents of any kind. It intends those documents to be "research," but there are literally zero standards for what can be uploaded. It's like uploading documents to your LinkedIn account.
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MA Rodger at 00:05 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
seattle @29,
I don't think there is anything in my comment @28 which would lead to the inference you make @29. That a lunatic buys his onions in a particular supermarket does not turn that supermarket into a lunatic asylum. But a man buying stones from a shop that insists they are sellng him onions does give pause for thought for both the man and the crazy shop.
If you were wishing to find some support for the Berry paper (although myself I would not bother wasting time on such a fool's errand), there is the point that Berry (2020) has been published in an allegedly peer-reviewed journal. However, not all journals are high quality. Indeed some are less concerned with quality of content than the quantity of content and will publish anything for a fee.
But even if the journal were of quality, it is not entirely wrong to publish crazy papers if they have some level of merit within the arguments they set out. The isotopic analyses of Berry's paper could have pehaps be considered as providing such consideration except you will note Andrews (2020) 'Correcting an Error in Some Interpretations of Atmospheric 14 C Data' (which is the second citation accrued by Berry 2020) who debunks Berry (2020) as well as a few other denialist papers who plough that same particular furrow.
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Eclectic at 23:06 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle , thank you for giving me a good laugh ~ with your re-rendering of some of my earlier commentaries at SkS. You are a treasure.
I hope the Moderators will leave your lengthy post untouched and unedited, for the entertainment of the general readership here at SkS. Perhaps, in your haste to collect a bag full, you made one or two errors in quotation (not to mention a lack of context) . . . but hey, let's not quibble ! And quite rightly, you have been unable to dispute the accuracy of my observations [on the clientele at WUWT website and science-deniers more generally].
MARodger , it was very kind of you to devote so much time to Gseattle, to point out to him some of the fundamental errors in Ed Berry's thinking. Let's hope Gseattle won't now demand you explain all the gross errors in the thinking of each & every one of the 31,000 "scientists" who signed the Oregon Petition of yesteryear !
Thank you as well, MARodger , for linking to the "serious nutcases" at Principia Scientific International (PSI). And thus the Desmogblog exposure of PSI. Just when I thought Gseattle's efforts could not be topped . . . I saw the letter [April 2013] where Christopher Monckton described the Numero Uno at PSI as "confused and scientifically illiterate". Ah, such black humor (of the Pot and Kettle type).
Poor PSI's Numero Uno, being looked down upon by that well-known scientific exemplar Lord Monckton. It gives fresh meaning to the old saying: "Lower than a snake's belly".
All getting a bit Off-Topic for this thread, though. But worth it.
Priceless !
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gseattle at 21:59 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
The inflamatory and judgemental terms you used, like garbage, crazy etc, literally make it difficult for my brain to be able to focus on the otherwise maybe pretty good content. The reason I'm attracted to science (and math) in the first place from a young age is for the absence of that type of thinking.
I do appreciate that you cared to address content, restored my hope in humanity somewhat.
There's a simpler overview by Dr. Berry here. I only ran across it because I was looking for any other scientists who might be criticizing his work. Could use some help finding any that might exist out there.
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gseattle at 21:26 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
So you're saying all papers at researchgate are bad because they also published Berry's?
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MA Rodger at 19:43 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle @22,
While I have no idea what the 'X' stands for, there is no doubt that Edwin X Berry is a real person. It is more "ominous" that he chooses to post his grand paper on principia-scientific.com as that shows a serious lack of judgement. Those PSI guys are serious nutcases who are actually of the opinion that AGW cannot be real because the theory breaks the Second Law of Thermodynmics (which in their version apparently says that a photon cannot travel from a cold place to a hot place, which would presumably make observing distant snow-topped mountains another impossibility).
You appear to be asking for an explanation of why the detail of Berry's grand paper is so-much garbage (rather than why his conclusions cannot be correct).
If you examine his grand model, it says no more than that the atmosphere is like a lake - the level of the water will go up if the input is greater than the output and visa versa (which is of course logical). And the output will be in some way dependent on the level - the higher the level, the more water will pour out of the outflows. He then creates a very simple mathematical interpretation of this situation which has little logic or physical basis.
His model shows that with constant input, the CO2 level will tend to an equilibrium level logarithmically. Berry fails to consider that such a finding is entirely without basis for CO2 in the atmosphere as the outflows are pouring into volumes with their own constraints and are not free to accept ever-increasing quantities of CO2. Rather, the logarithmic relationship holds roughly for changes in volume, not changes of rate of volume.
Yet the big error in his reasoning is to use his fancy model before trying to compare it with the real world situation. He uses it to conclude that the rate outflow which defines the level in his model can be aportioned and thus the level likewise. Thus, if 95% of the outflow is natural, then his model shows that 95% of the level must also be natural. The crazy logic this presents wold mean that in 1750 the influx of CO2 from ocean & biosphere would have been only 150Gt(C)/yr as this would support the pre-industrial CO2 level of 280ppm and since that time this natural influx would have risen 40% to reach today's 210Gt(C) which is required to support 390ppm in the atmosphere which is what Berry tells us is the natural component of atmosperic CO2.
There is zero evidence for such a 40% natural rise in CO2 emission and no reason given for this natural rise occurring after ten millenia of flat CO2 levels, to magically appear in recent decades at just the time and the same rate as the anthropogenic input.
Berry however, makes no attempt to check his model against reality. Instead he launches into a misrepresentation of actual modelling of atmospheric CO2 with an analysis with isotope data (which I have not examined but assume it is as crazy as the foregoing analyses).
I hope this explanation of Berry's crazy theorising will suffice.
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gseattle at 19:11 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
To nigelj @24, you might prefer the one at researchgate then:
Moderator Response:(BW) activated link
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nigelj at 13:31 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @22, the link you post from principiascientific.com is part of a very politicised website. The link you post is also not convincing. Its full of basic misunderstandings so the maths ends up proving nothing.
I will try to explain this in my own words and keep it simplified. What actually happens is natural sources of CO2 largely exist in a balanced equilibrium with nature where emissions are absorbed by natural sinks, on decade to decade time framnes. For example the photosynthesis cycle. The paleo record shows all this, so its settled science. So CO2 stays largely constant in the atmosphere on decadal time scales.
Now sometimes things get out of balance if there is a sudden source of emissions and CO2 builds up in the atmosphere for example a truly huge volcanic eruption (these are uncommon) , or as part of the ice age cycle, so atmospheric CO2 increases on decades to centuries time scales. Again we know this from the paleo record. Eventually this reverses very long term as CO2 is absorbed by rock weathering processes, so you get balance again and no run away increase.
Over the last 100 years or so natural sources of CO2 have been in balanced equilibrium. There has been no build up in the atmosphere from natural sources. The build up in CO2 cannot be explained by natural causes. Volcanic and geothermal activity has been stable. The slowing AMOC is not causing the oceans to release CO2. We know this because the oceans are acidifying, so absorbing CO2 - the excess CO2 from burning fossil fuels being the obvious explanation. The reversal of the earths magnetic field started well before the 100 year increase in CO2 so cannot be responsible. There is no plausible causative mechanism anyway.
You dont even need any huge amount of science to figure these things out. Its just having a reasonable knowledge of the issues and some logical deduction. This is how I approach it.
The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 100 or so years is not from "natural causes". Multiple lines of evidenc point to all this. You have been given explanations by MAR and references to read on this websites myths column by eclectic, based on peer reviewed published reasearch, and you ignore these, and do not explain which elements you dispute, and instead post something by "eberry.com" which is not published research and author not identified. It suggests you just dont want to accept the possibility humans are causing the increase in CO2.
I think you need to ask yourself why you are doing all this. There is of course nothing wrong with healthy scepticism of scientific theories, but its silly to be sceptical when all the evidence points one way so convincingly, towards foosil fuels ebing the source of the CO2, and towards AGW, so the fact you continue to be sceptical suggests you either 1) simply do not understand or 2) are determined not to understand, perhaps being instead driven by some undeclared narrative whether political or conspiratorial or whatever.
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Eclectic at 10:55 AM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle , best if you exert yourself to making genuine points of argument, rather than use empty rhetoric (which is something that Moderators tend to zap). [ And yes, I do enjoy posting on this thread! ]
It would be helpful to readers (and possibly to yourself) if you clarified the underlying problem you have with Greta Thunberg.
Looking at the bigger picture : it sounds dramatic to say "200 species extinct every day". How accurate is that? ~ quite probably it is accurate enough for practical purposes (of guiding our actions).
Why probably? : well, there are many millions of species . . . and millions more of species which are not yet discovered/identified. The ecological balance has been tilted against these species, and so it is hardly surprising that you get a dramatic answer if you divide a very large Numerator by thousands of days.
We already know even prior to the current major warming . . . that the expanding human population has tilted the balance strongly ~ thanks to de-forestation, extensive agriculture, over-grazing, pesticide usage, etcetera etcetera. And we know from the paleo evidence, that the comparable rapid warming episodes of the past have caused massive extinctions.
IOW : at present, the plants & animals are being hit by a "Double Whammy". So you should not be surprised at the level of extinctions per day. And there seems little point in you arguing whether the "200 per day" might only be "100 per day".
The major concern is ~ What should be be done about these changes in the real physical world? Should we sadly shake our heads, and sit on our hands? Should we engage in a game of Trivial Pursuit, and spend our time discoursing about "200" or "50" or "100" ? Or should we look at the bigger picture, and avoid distractions, and take intelligent action?
What is your choice, Gseattle ?
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gseattle at 10:42 AM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
The author's middle initial of Ed Berry is X, seems ominous.
https://principia-scientific.com/human-co2-emissions-have-little-effect-on-atmospheric-co2/
What's one of the most plainly wrong of his arguments?
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Eclectic at 23:15 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
(continued)
Gseattle @18 ,
you should look up the definition of Ad Hominem Argument ~ you seem confused about its meaning. And with particular regard to the egregious Dr Ed Berry whom I mentioned again in post #16 :- if you read carefully, you will see I did not denigrate his arguments because of his imperfect (or perfect?) personal traits . . . but I denigrated them as being plainly wrong.
And the more intelligent a Denier is, the more he uses "Doublethink" to deceive himself that he is right ~ even when part of his brain knows he is plainly wrong. That's bad in itself ~ and even worse when he sets out (intentionally or otherwise) to grossly mislead the readers of his statements.
Gseattle, my apologies for my long postings . . . yet you may find the contents educational.
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Eclectic at 23:01 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @18 ,
in your final paragraph, re Comments Policy, you seem to be misunderstanding the ordinary meaning of words.
For instance : where science is being discussed, the label "denier" is an accurate description of someone who promulgates untruths i.e. who asserts statements contrary to well-established facts
e.g. statements that evolution does not occur
. . . and that the Earth is Flat
. . . and rapid global warming is not occurring (or that it is not primarily human-caused; or that it is happening only to an insignificant extent; or that CO2 has little or no Greenhouse radiative effect; and so on. )
You will also see similar labels such as Denialist or science-denier or climate-science-denier or climate-denier and suchlike. The meaning of these terms is very clear ~ and in a "hard sciences" area like climatology, it is very easy to see who is a scientist and who is a pseudo-scientist. (Here I would emphasize the definition of a scientist as someone who thinks scientifically full-time, rather than part-time.)
The attribution of "another person's motives" for being anti-scientific, is usually best avoided, for we humans have complex brains and attitudes, often involving a Gordian Knot of tangled motives and emotions (some contradictory, some subconscious & unknown even to the possessor of anti-scientific views).
Perhaps, Gseattle, you have not recognized the psychological condition Motivated Reasoning ~ where an otherwise-intelligent person is driven by his emotional biases, to deny plain scientific evidence, and to use his intelligence to concoct all sorts of spurious reasons for denying well-established mainstream science.
Your man Dr Ed Berry (that you introduced in an earlier post) is a prime example of a Denier. Possibly a nice guy . . . possibly very correct in some other areas of science/engineering . . . but WRT the highly-important field of AGW/Climate science, he is a Denier. And it is efficient useful and proper, that we call a Spade a Spade.
In most cases, we can't be certain of the motives of climate-deniers. Some are crackpots, who can't think straight, but have a weird obsessive bee in their bonnet . . . though without an obvious political-extremist association. Others are simply "financial" shills who are paid to propagandize untruths & misleading half-truths. Some have extreme personality traits of anger and selfishness (you will see many of this sort on denialist website comments columns).
And some are in the very early stages of dementia from age, cranial arteriosclerosis, alcohol, etcetera ~ this can be the case with those elderly once-famous scientists who come to develop a Galileo Complex where they fancy that they can newly take up the science of climatology . . . and demonstrate how all the world's expert climate scientists are grossly mistaken! Amusing, but sad ~ so perhaps I shouldn't mention here some of the prominent names you will see associated with propaganda organisations such as Heartland and GWPF.
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BaerbelW at 22:27 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
gseattle @11
I recently became aware of a new study published in The Lancet (link to open source article) which looks at populationg growth and they see the peak at around 9.7B in 2064 and then slowly falling to 8.8B by 2100. Here is the press release from July 14 about the article.
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gseattle at 19:44 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html
Growing at a slower pace, world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and could peak at nearly 11 billion around 2100
17 June 2019, New YorkThe world’s population is expected to increase by 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from 7.7 billion currently to 9.7 billion in 2050, according to a new United Nations report launched today.
...
The study concluded that the world’s population could reach its peak around the end of the current century, at a level of nearly 11 billion.
Roughly:
2B / 30 yr = 66,670,000 / yr = 182,648 / day = 7,610 / hour = 127 new people on earth per minute
Quite a few -
BaerbelW at 17:43 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle @18
The best way to get in touch with Skeptical Science is via the "Contact Us" link shown at the bottom of each page. One of us will see your message in our inbox and either respond or forward it as needed.
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gseattle at 15:39 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
In the Comment policy it says: "If you think our debunking of one of those myths is in error,
you are welcome to discuss that on the relevant thread".
Unfortunately I need to bring this up, I'd prefer to discuss it by email but I emailed John and didn't hear back.
A portion of what I wrote above was deleted by moderator DB. At minimum, I need to know what portion was supposedly sloganeering. His comment was not specific but I think it might have been the idea that some of my text is presumably covered in #34 but I can't find mention of amoc or slowing there. Can I be allowed to know what I said was considered bad?
To summarize it, I mentioned that part--and I believe I used links but it's deleted now--like to the European Space Agency (ESA) on that, and then brought it right back to Greta, saying basically I want her message to be as sound as possible, expressing my well-wishes "I want her respected with a great future", and then I went back to the species question which is always a cornerstone of her message, I wrote some words to try to spur your community into presenting a scientific paper for the species claim, I showed IUCN's official extinction numbers, and then I suggested a route forward for Greta which I'm afraid to repeat now since it was deleted, I thought it was a pretty reasonable idea.
The moderator DB said:
[DB] Off-topic and sloganeering snipped. Please up your game and cite reputable sources, in-context.
That's quite a set of sins there and I don't understand what I presumably did wrong your honor.
The other thing is I am always trying to be civil, the Comment policy disallows ad hominem, critique of another person's motives, labels such as "denier", and an inflammatory tone, so I'm wondering, why are they allowed to violate those terms against me continuously above?
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gseattle at 14:51 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Ah, got it. Thanks for the explanation. I'm red-green colorblind, can barely tell the difference between this and this so that's part of the confusion over that, had no idea it was a link. Military said the red-green thing is in 1/10th of whyte males some time ago. Plus it didn't seem to turn up on Google for some reason: "Most Used Climate Myths" site:skepticalscience.com ... Sorry for that problem.
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michael sweet at 10:56 AM on 6 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Preston Urka:
According to your reference, "The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs." That means treated sewage is used to cool the power plant. The power plant is not used to treat the sewage.
With current shortages of water in Arizona they would drink the treated sewage instead of using it to cool a power plant.
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Preston Urka at 07:15 AM on 6 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
michael sweet - it seems no discussion of economics: the value of dispatchable power vs intermittent energy, or the distinction between average cost and marginal cost, or the distinction between the cost of a single plant vs a total grid system - these are simply not allowed.
Since this is outside the permissible discussion topics here, I just won't make any further economic arguments for nuclear.
Post @202 is not about using waste heat to power industry, but about using heat (as in primarily, skipping the conversion to electricity and back again).
An example of using waste heat to power industry is Palo Verde used to treat sewage.
"It is uneconomic to run since a reactor requires many more operators than a traditional ship. Military vessels do not care about the extreme cost." - what, a bald statement without a citation? I might give you that the military is insensitive to cost, but you have not presented evidence for this conclusion. Ditto your _belief_ that this is a tempting terrorist target.
Of course, there are exceptions: a rather opinionated, belief-ridden statement "Nuclear power is uneconomic." from @206, without citations or calculations lives on. Taking construction cost and time-to-build, you put it through your arithmetic machine and end up with ... I mean it looks like you have a point, but one does have to keep close a bunch of pre-conceived notions about economics and power grids and then finish the thought for you for an actual conclusion to be reached.
To have the privilege of discourse where almost any thought is censored, well ... if that is the site you guys want, you are welcome to it.
Moderator Response:[JH] Moderation complaints are prohibited by this site's Comment Policy and therefore have been struck through. In addition, you are now skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is also prohibited by the policy.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive, off-topic posts or intentionally misleading comments and graphics or simply make things up. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter, as no further warnings shall be given.
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michael sweet at 02:35 AM on 6 September 2020New paper shows that renewables can supply 100% of all energy (not just electricity)
This article provides the abstract of 47 peer reviewed articles that describe how to convert the economy to 100% renewable energy. Many of them give specific plans for building out a 100% renewable system to provide all energy to either a large country or a continent.
This link is useful to find references to support renewable energy or simply as a source of background reading to inform the reader. If you want to read beyond the abstract use Google Scholar to look for free copies. If you are reading challenged you can simply read the titles of the papers and figure they show what the title describes. This list is probably up to date in 2019.
Hat tip to Postkey who pointed me to this article.
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Eclectic at 02:32 AM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @ #13 (now recently shuffled to #15 )
the Climate Myths you are looking for, have a prominent link just below the top left corner of this page; of the Home page; and indeed of almost every page of this website.
see :- MOST USED ... Climate Myths ( in bright red ink)
And it is worth repeating ~ the Dr Ed Berry you have mentioned via your earlier link, is completely misrepresenting the scientific facts. His climate ideas are wacky pseudo-science. As far as I know, he may be a fine gentleman . . . kind to children . . . generous to charities . . . but his arithmetic on atmospheric CO2 is crazy-wrong. A sad case, to be sure! Even worse ~ there's a strong suspicion he's getting the science wrong deliberately (it is hard to believe someone with his tertiary degrees could get it so very wrong accidentally ). And I am sorry to see he has misled you with his nonsense. But never too late for you ~ you can go to Climate Myth 34 thread, and learn the real science.
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John Hartz at 00:36 AM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
I inadvertently deleted the following post:
gseattle at 15:36 PM on 5 September 2020
What is the human percent CO2 percentage? As shown (and ignored), sources seem to range 1% to 5%. I went with the apparent maximum estimate, 5%. This says "The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees human CO2 is only 5 percent and natural CO2 is 95 percent of the CO2 inflow into the atmosphere". But the source?
It is invalid to deny science and claim CO2's jump from 1880 can only be human. The reason for this is because of the massive effect of the ocean sink together with ocean slowing over the last 200 years now being studied. The ocean is said to store 50 to 60 times the CO2 of air but its capacity has diminished. Shown above, the air CO2 rise from 1880 is partly from nature, no other way to explain it.
"The oceans as a whole have a large capacity for absorbing CO2, but ocean mixing is too slow to have spread this additional CO2 deep into the ocean. As a result, ocean waters deeper than 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) have a large but still unrealized absorption capacity, said Scripps geochemist Ralph Keeling".
IPCC: "oceans [...] contain roughly 50 times the quantity of carbon currently contained in the atmosphere". In the past, it was considered 60 times (see Arhrenius, Callendar and/or Revelle).
This has the highest estimate I could find for total anthropogenic CO2 in gigatons since the industrial revolution. The number should be 1374 rather than 1370.
Doha infographic gets the numbers wrong, underestimates human emissions
If there's a higher number somewhere, a link to a specific page containing it would be helpful. I always like to use numbers that will favor the side of anyone who might want to argue the point when reasonable, and web pages they can like, when possible. Except in the case of 200 species per day, which is 100% unscientific.
This says 1 ppm CO2 per 7.77 Gt for the calculation. (James Hansen)
NOAA: 414 latest (NOAA's measurement while NASA's 2020 value is lower and just a model). Another source might be https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2, daily, etc.
Unfortunately couldn't find the string "Most Used Climate Myths" anywhere on this domain, perhaps use a direct link instead. MA found 1,617Gt (CO2) in Global Carbon Project, there's an xls file on the page at that link, seven tabs, perhaps he calculated it, didn't say, a description/walkthrough of the intended process may help. Reading further at realclimate on that large page, author stefan vilifies 5%, implying he knows, and then places it at 110% "the best estimate for the anthropogenic share of global warming since 1950 is 110 percent" and the source offered is another page written by stefan which cites his source as a Tweet by Gavin Schmidt which points to a 2015 Bloomberg article which does not provide any value for human vs natural CO2 at all. Typical confusion. Curiously, no one corrected .58 above, it should be 1.67/yr (still less than Greta's up to 73,000/yr). Numerous points made by gseattle have gone unopposed, they have to logically be regarded as likely solid logic and scientifically sound unless eventually opposed using science (rather than scorn). The message everywhere from climate alarmists when presented with facts seems to be, you must believe or we're going to get mad and use ridicule/scorn. Information being treated like blasphemy, that's anti-scientific.
No, really, be kind to opponents on this thought-battlefield and let your weapons be scientific facts, actual content with references in a calm way. Ad hominem is not science. Attempts to devalidate an opponent by labeling one as bad or wrong or not understanding anything isn't science nor educational to any who might read this in generations to come, nor correct. The chances are very good if any of us knew each other personally we could get along just fine and like and respect each other even with differences of opinion, all of my friends are wrong about everything and I still love them (a bit of levity there, in case it isn't obvious that was nervous humor, pending copyright).
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MA Rodger at 22:36 PM on 5 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle @13,
You are quoting the fake scientific paper of a climate change denier to misrepresent the IPCC. The denier and the IPCC do not reach any significant 'agreement'. Indeed, the denier shows this. You do not.
You quote the first sentence of the abstract yet the second sentence is entirely wrong. Barry (2019) Human CO2 Emissions Have Little Effect on Atmospheric CO2 which begins its abstract saying:-
"The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees human CO2 is only 5 percent and natural CO2 is 95 percent of the CO2 inflow into the atmosphere. The ratio of human to natural CO2 in the atmosphere must equal the ratio of the inflows. Yet IPCC claims human CO2 has caused all the rise in atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm, which is now 130 ppm or 32 percent of today's atmospheric CO2." [My bold]
The IPCC would give the size of the natural 'inflows' of CO2 into the atmosphere over a year as being roughly 210Gt(C). And the IPCC would give the 'inflows' of anthropogenic CO2 today as being roughly 10Gt(C). So the ratio between these two numbers is roughly 5%. Yet it is not a very informative value. And do note that the second sentence in that abstract is flat wrong.
210Gt(C) would raise atmospheric CO2 by roughly 100ppm. With the annual CO2 cycle in the atmosphere showing a peak-to-peak value of just 5ppm, it is obvious that there are 'outflows' operating to balance these natural 'inflows'. And year-to-year, with the variation in the pre-industrial CO2 level pretty-much flat, it is evident that the natural inflows & outflows balance almost perfectly.
Through the industrial period, the rising CO2 levels is entirely due to anthropogenic emissions. And the rising CO2 has also increased the natural 'outflows' so that today about 55% of anthropogenic emissions are diverted out of the atmosphere by natural processes. This includes 'outflows' into the ocean which are evident by increasing ocean acidity. Thus it is not 100% of the CO2 rise that is man-made but 220%.
;;;
You balk at the spreadsheet data presented by the Global Carbon Project (linked @12) and instead present a tertiary reference to another spreadsheet which is almost ten years out-of-date (so add about 300Gt(CO2) to the values given for today's values) and now provides broken links to its data sources. The 1,374Gt(CO2) value for FF 1850-2011 concurs with the GCP value which gives 1,364Gt(CO2). The 1,832Gt(CO2) value "to end of 2010" is not so obvious but presumably includes LUC emissions. (Note, unlike pre-1850 FF emissions, pre-1850 LUC emissions are significant if included.)
Moderator Response:[BL]
Michael Sweet has kindly provided a link to Climate Myth #34, which you can see on the Recent Comments page, but the comment is on the Climate Myth #34 thread.
Here is a link to Michael's comment. Please take further discussion to that thread.
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michael sweet at 21:27 PM on 5 September 2020Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Gseattle:
Here is a link to climate Myth 34.
Moderator Response:[BL] Michael Sweet's comment is the result of an increasingly off-topic discussion on this thread:
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Hopefully discussion will continue here, but readers may want to read the other thread for context.
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Eclectic at 19:00 PM on 5 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @13 ,
It appears you have not read the information available here in Climate Myth Number 34. And you have not read information provided by the IPCC.
Instead, your quotation about the IPCC "[which] agrees human CO2 is only 5 percent [etcetera]" . . . is taken from a website by the science-denier Mr (or Dr? ) Ed Berry. Sorry, Gseattle, but that statement by Ed Berry is carefully designed to mislead those (such as yourself) who are ill-informed and have given little thought to the CO2 situation.
Berry is trying to deceive you (and at the same time deceive himself). Berry is not a climate scientist ~ he is one of those intelligent crackpots who are little better than Flat-Earthers.
Gseattle, if you are serious about educating yourself, then start by reading Climate Myth Number 34. Then you will begin to understand why Ed Berry's climate arguments are of the "nutcase" type.
And you might finally grasp why your own CO2 assertions are based upon a fundamental logical error ~ you have confused CO2 accumulation with CO2 inflow/outfow ( = flux ) . Which is rather like a businessman who has confused profit with turnover.
In short, please take your CO2 comments to Myth 34 thread. (Where it will be On-Topic. )
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gseattle at 15:33 PM on 5 September 2020Greta Thunberg's TEDx talk
On Greta's "up to 200 species going extinct every single day" from climate change (73,000/yr), since they can't name a single species extinct from climate change (ever) to any definitive level, this is an effort to find a scientific paper backing the claim. No success yet but here are some of the bread crumbs. Earliest "200" is 1995:
2004, UN Environment Programme, TUNZA for YOUTH
. . . "It is estimated that between 150 and 200 species become extinct every day"
. . . No citation or reference. Page removed in 2009.
1997, Encyclopedia of World Problems & Human Potential, Decreasing diversity of biological species
. . . "150 to 200 species"
. . . "World Bank and Worldwatch Institute, and reported to the Rio+5 conference in 1997, estimated 150 to 200 species of life become extinct every 24 hours"
1997, J. John Sepkoski Jr., Biodiversity: Past Present and Future
. . . "range to 150 species etinctions per day (Ehrlich and Wilson, 1991)" [extinctions typo in paper],
. . . although Sepkoski adds "[total species] figure is misleading, however, because no official list of described species exists"
1995, Adam Rogers of United Nations, [Book] Taking action: An environmental guide for you and your community
. . . "every 24 hours, an estimated 150 to 200 species of life become extinct" (in the preface)
. . . No citation or reference.
1991, PAUL R. EHRLICH and EDWARD 0. WILSON, Biodiversity Studies: Science and Policy
. . . no mention of extinctions per day as Sepkoski said.
1989, WV Reid and K Miller, Keeping options alive: the scientific basis for conserving biodiversity
. . . "potential loss of" ... "50 to 150 species per day". Contains "climate change" 27 times.
1989, WALTER V. REID, How many species will there be?
. . . "potential loss of" ... "50 to 150 species per day". Included in a larger IUCN report containing "climate change" 11 times.
. . . "An estimated 25 percent of the world's species present in the mid-1980s may be extinct by the year 2015".
1988, Edward O. Wilson Harvard University, Biodiversity
. . . "By the end of this century [year 2000], our planet could lose anywhere from 20 to 50% of its species (Table 6–1)"
1979, Norman Myers, The sinking ark : a new look at the problem of disappearing species
. . . "at least 1 million by the end of the century"
. . . That's 137 per day starting in 1980.
1979, Norman Myers, Conserving our Global Stock
. . . "present century, about one species per year"I want Greta Thunberg to do well, best bet is to drop the silly '200 species' thing and focus on living, threatened species instead. It's serious, the numbers are large.
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michael sweet at 04:54 AM on 5 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Daniel Bailey:
On the forced variations thread at RealClimate a nuclear argument like the last 30 posts above has been going on for several years. Unsupported claims and the opinion of people informed only by their reading on the internet are constantly repeated month after month.
I do not like to have these post at SkS go unanswered. At some point we need to say that everyone has had their say and given their references and leave it alone or the thread will go on forever. If references were required and repetition not allowed the argument would soon end since there are few papers to support the nuclear argument.
Moderator Response:[BL] This discussion is now deep into repetition. Future posts that repeat previous points will continue to be heavily moderated.
For those that have not carefully read and understood the Comments Policy, please review it before commenting again. In particular:
Comments should avoid excessive repetition. Discussions which circle back on themselves and involve endless repetition of points already discussed do not help clarify relevant points. They are merely tiresome to participants and a barrier to readers. If moderators believe you are being excessively repetitive, they will advise you as such, and any further repetition will be treated as being off topic.
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michael sweet at 04:34 AM on 5 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Preston Urka at 216:
This is another post where you state your unsupportted ideas. Since you have no training, experience or education in nuclear power or power systems this post is entirely sloganeering. You are simply cherry picking data to fit your arguments. If your arguments had any weight you would find some references to support them. This is a completely unscientific post.
At 217: Every point you make is started "I believe". You have only one reference from 2012. Experience in wind power worldwide since 2012 shows that your reference is incorrect. Once again you are simply sloganeering. This is a completely unscientific post.
218: Here you actually have citations!!! Unfortunately, all are to news articles (including one at WUWT!!!) and not peer reviewed articles. You primarily discuss grid expansion costs. Fortuantely, this is covered in the peer reviewed literature cited upthread. If you had carefully read the background you would know that grid expansion typically costs 10-15% of total costs. This turns out to be a reasonable cost. Here is another link to a peer reviewed paper that discusses grid costs. Nuclear supporters used to make this argument several years ago until it was proven incorrect. Please try to catch up to current knowledge. Citing outdated papers and debunked arguments makes you look bad.
At 219: The point is that your claim that low carbon intensity in Sweden is due to nuclear was deliberately false.
At 220: Everyone wants to reduce the carbon intensity of economies. The peer reviewed literature indicates that the best way to achieve this goal is by building out renewable energy as fast as possible. This link contains the abstracts of 47 papers that describe how to provide 100% of energy to the entire economy world wide using renewable energy. They come from 13 different research groups with 91 different authors. This list demonstrates a consensus among energy system researchers that renewable energy is the way to go. (Hat tip to Postkey. You need to describe why your link is useful to be compliant with the posting rules.)
Your claims that renewable energy cannot supply 100% of world power are supported only by your opinion as someone who has no education, training or work experience in power systems and is completely informed by reading on the internet (and who cites WUWT as a reliable source). Coonstantly repeating your unsupported opinion is sloganeering.
Please cite one paper that suggests it might be possible to supply even half of world energy using nuclear power. Such a paper does not exist. According to Abbott 2012, it is impossible to supply a significant amount of world energy (more than 5%) using nuclear power.
Moderator Response:[BL] Responses to moderated comments deleted
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Preston Urka at 02:32 AM on 5 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
michael sweet @215
Following up to my point in @216 (hydro vs. non-hydro)
"I think we agree that a system that is 58% renewable and 40% nuclear has low carbon emissions primarily because of high renewable content." can also be read as:
Sweden has low-carbon emissions (in electricity) primarily due to 80% dispatchable low-carbon generation, assisted by 18% intermittent low-carbon generation, for a total of 98%.
It is not the RE% penetration that determines emissions; it is the carbon content generation that determines emissions.
Moderator Response:[BL] Followup to a now-moderated comment deleted.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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wilddouglascounty at 02:29 AM on 5 September 2020Siberia’s 2020 heatwave made ‘600 times more likely’ by climate change
I wish these types of articles would be more careful with the way they describe the observed changes. Instead of saying that the observed extreme weather event "...would have been “almost impossible” without human-caused climate change" they should say that it "would have been almost impossible without increased carbon emissions from human activity."
The problem with saying that "human-caused climate change" is that it's a short distance away from saying that the extreme weather event was caused by climate change. But climate change is a change in the average number of weather events, in the same way a baseball player's hitting average goes up if he hits the ball more frequently. In other words, the hitting average does not "cause" the player to hit better--the improved number of hits increases his batting average. Just as the player's improved performance has its causes: steroids, better coaching, more practice, less stress in his personal life, etc., the increased number of extreme events has a cause: increased carbon emissions from human activity.
By saying "increased carbon emissions from human activities" instead of "human caused climate change" you get to the true causes of the changed weather patterns, and avoid saying the equivalent of the nonsensical phrase: "Joe's improved hitting average caused him to hit 2 singles and a home run in last night's game."
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MA Rodger at 19:27 PM on 4 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @8 & @10,
You venture into consideration of atmospheric CO2, a subject area in which you evidently have very little understanding. I would add that levels of atmospheric CO2 are not directly a factor in the rate of species extinctions.
The pre-industrial atmosphere contained some 280ppm CO2. The increase from 280ppm to today's 412ppm (this a current annual global average) is almost wholly directly due to human emissions. The rate of increase in CO2 has been accelerating through the industrial period and is now running at +2.5ppm/year.
I don't recognise the numbers you present for (what I assume you consider to be) accumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions in that @10 you talk of 1,370Gt and this being in some way equivalent to 177ppm.
The Global Carbon Project assess anthropogenic emissions from Fossil Fuels since 1750 as 441Gt(C) = 1,617Gt(CO2). If such a quantity of CO2 were added to the atmosphere it would increase atmospheric concentrations by 207ppm.
Additional to FF emissions are the anthropogenic emissions from Land Use Change. The Global Carbon Project assess these LUC emissions back to 1850 and thus arrive at a total for anthropogenic CO2 emissions (FF + LUC) of 645Gt(C) = 2,361Gt(CO2), a quantity which would increase atmospheric levels 303ppm if added to the atmosphere.
Global Carbon Project assess the level of CO2 in the atmosphere resulting from human activities through the industrial period amounts to 277Gt(C) = 1,106Gt(CO2) and which would (and indeed does) increase CO2 levels by 130ppm. The ocean & land sinks that have drawn CO2 from the atmosphere through the industrial period are show to account for the difference between the all-emissions 303ppm & the emissions-plus-sinks 130ppm.
None of this atmospheric CO2 business is in any way controversial outside the febrile and ridiculous reasonings of climate chage deniers. As the RealClimate item you reference @8 proclaims:-
"The basic facts about the global increase of CO2 in our atmosphere are clear and established beyond reasonable doubt."
For reasons that cannot be explained by me, you chose to ignore this message and instead choose to quote from a piece of climate denial being debunked by the RealClimate item.
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