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michael sweet at 11:44 AM on 19 January 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
DougC,
This is the correct place to put nuclear comments. You are currently off topic.
While you paint an amusing picture, the fact of the matter is that the reactors you reference have not been invented yet. Among many other problems, your reference points out that the materials needed for the containment structure and valves are unknown (he suggests using "unobtainium"). Sourcing the required tons of Li7 (a material proposed to be discarded as radioactive waste) would be impossible since Lithium will all be used in batteries by that time.
The most optimistic time lines for thorium breeder reactors like you support are that pilot plants might be built by 2050. The climate problem needs to be solved way before then. In the remote possibility that the pilot plants work it would be decades later before significant numbers of plants could be built.
Try again with a plan the does not first require the invention of the power source.
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nigelj at 09:51 AM on 19 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
ianw01 @7
"Is the "Climate Change Performance Index" implicitly and silently opposed to nuclear energy?'
Don't know for sure, but something might be going on. Nuclear power is a dirty word in many western countries. Its not liked by the general public because of safety problems and disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima for understanable reasons. Policy makers pick up on this.
However the scare stories about nuclear radiation look exaggerated. I've read credible reports that nuclear power (including the nuclear accidents) kills and injures far fewer people per megawatt / hour than fossil fuels power, and moderately fewer than renewables. A surprising number of people fall off ladders erecting solar panels etcetera! Heres a relevant article:
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/
Like others point out, there are questions about the validity of the linear no threshold model. Its complicated but the impression I get from looking at intelligent commentary and research on both sides of the issue is low dose radiation is likely zero or very low risk, not worth bothering about.
However nuclear power has some big problems. Waste disposal is still not sorted out on a durable long term basis and of course this feeds public scepticism. Its higher cost than wind power and coal power (refer Lazards analysis, free online). Its slow to build for various reasons and this is a big issue given the speed climate change is progressing.
However imho nuclear power has considerable merit, at least as "part of the mix".
Solar and wind power have intermittency issues, and as a stand alone solution require a lot of storage that is currently high cost. They currently typically rely instead on gas back up power which is not ideal. If you inject some nuclear power into the mix you get clean energy and need much less storage.
I think we need all the tools we can get and the grid can have a range of power sources. This article shows that nuclear power can also be used to counter renewable intermittency issues.
news.mit.edu/2018/flexible-nuclear-operation-can-help-add-more-wind-and-solar-to-the-grid-0425
Of course storage costs will drop and renewables may well win the day. But my point is there doesn't seem to be a robust case to deliberately exclude nuclear power.
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Doug_C at 08:31 AM on 19 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
For anyone interested in what a viable nuclear reactor type on the scale necessary to fully replace fossil fuels would probably look like.
Why the molten salt fast reactor (MSFR) is the “best” Gen IV reactor
Also an interesting piece from Forbes on perhaps why nuclear power has found it so hard to compete with fossil fuels especially in America.
Why Renewables Advocates Protect Fossil Fuel Interests, Not The Climate
There's little doubt in my mind that large scale nuclear power is probably the last hope we have to mitigate this growing catastrophe cuased by virtually unregulated fossil fuels use that already kills millions of people each year from air pollution alone.
Advocates for nuclear power like Alvin Weinberg were deeply concerned about climate change long before it became a mainstream issue and Weinberg specifically designed a safe nuclear power reactor in the 1960s as his solution to this existential threat.
Weinberg's mentor was Eugene Wigner, the physicist who did the groundbreaking research that gave us semi-conducting transistors that underlie most of modern technology, we wouldn't have PCs or the internet in the present form without his insights.
He was also the one who came up with the idea of molten salt nuclear reactors way back in the 1940s. A nuclear physics student of his I communicated with said that in 1960 Wigner was telling his students that thorium - burned in his molten salt reactors - would be the salvation of mankind.
From what I can see we definitely need that form of salvation and now.
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Doug_C at 07:02 AM on 19 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
ianw01 @7
A couple to things to add about nuclear power, it is already the safest form of power production, has over a million times the energy density of fossil fuels which in turn have much greater energy density than renewables like solar and wind power.
With new reactor types like pebble bed and molten salt reactors the already high safety factor becomes much higher and with molten salt reactors the nuclear waste issues is mitigated by a factor of about 100.
One of the main issues with the current fleet of nuclear power reactors is that they almost all use pressurized water as a moderator and coolant and so need massive primary and secondary containment which is not perfectly fail-safe. They also use solid fuel which quickly degrades under the intense heat and neutron bombardment in a nuclear reactor core. Reprocessing this spent fuel is expensive and dangerous.
With molten salt reactor cores the fissile material is in solution in an unpressurized molten salt and remains in the reactor until almost all of it is converted to short lived fission products that don't need to be safely stored for the thousands of years that TRUs(transuranic actinides) need to be. Some of those fission products are commercially valuable like the noble metals that are produced as part of the fission process as well as xenon and small amounts of Pu-238 used in deep space exploration as fuel and power production. A molten salt reactor is also a medical isotopes reactor and there would never be a shortage of the Technetium-99m and iodine-131 used in imaging. Bismuth-213 can be used to treat cancer tumors. Most of these fission products can be pulled from an operating molten salt reactor by hydrogen parging of a side stream of the molten core salt.
Exposure to ionizing radiation is the main fear around large scale nuclear power, but this is something all life is exposed to constantly including us.
The evidence is starting to show that life is negatively impacted by the removal of a certain level of ionzing radiation, which would confound the Linear no-Threshold model of risk from ionzing radiation which states that ionizing radiation is hazardous down to a zero dose rate.
For these and other reason we should be taking a much closer look at nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels in combination with low density renewables. It's not an either/or equation, it's about everything we have now to replace all fossil fuels as rapidly as we can before the condition become so catastrophic that it becomes impossible to mitigate climate change.
Reading the article about talking about over a billion organisms killed by the current massive outbreak of wildfires in Australia and how they have almost certainly driven some species extinct, I think we are getting close to that point now.
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ianw01 at 03:34 AM on 19 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
On a slightly different note, I was intrigued by the "Climate Change Performance Index". From what I can see it puts a lot of emphasis on the movement to renewables, but does not give credit for using nuclear as an alternative to fossil fuels. The report contains the word nuclear exactly once, where they make the statement that renewable installations outpace nuclear.
To be specific, a country will get points for reducing GHG emissions by switching away from fossil fuel, but if they move to renewables they get additional points in the "renewable use" category. A move to nuclear earns no such extra ("climate change") points from what I can see.
I'm not thrilled about nuclear, but I believe that its merits need to be weighed fairly. What I think I'm seeing is an quiet anti-nuke idealogy being bundled up under the banner of "Climate Change Performance".
I'd rather not (re-)litigate the merits of nuclear here. It certainly is not clear-cut. But what I would like to know from fellow commenters is whether I have read that right:
Is the "Climate Change Performance Index" implicitly and silently opposed to nuclear energy?
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Hank11198 at 23:09 PM on 18 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
OPOF @ 45,
“I have worked with many international design codes and am well aware of the basis for wind design and other climate condition design requirements.
I understood what you presented. That is why I replied.”
Your questions about whether the code claims to be anything beyond 1.5C and your interest in seeing the basis for being certain made me think you did not understand how the code determines design wind speeds. That was the reason for my explanation.
“Climate change will result in many regional climate conditions that are more severe than historical records. As a result of the increases of extreme events every item design based on the less extreme history will become less safe than intended. Reread all of my comments with that new awareness and uunderstanding.”
That is pretty much what I stated when I said some structures will be at more risk and some will be at less risk depending on the location. The only difference which is somewhat technical is the engineers I know consider a structure to be either safe or unsafe for a specific loading. If a loading shows the structure to be higher than the point of failure (not the design wind but similar to seismic loading), then the structure is considered unsafe. But it’s not considered less safe because it is at a risk of being loaded with a higher wind speed loading.
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Doug_C at 19:11 PM on 18 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
nigeli @5
I think that's exactly what it is, the same goes for where I live here in BC. The oil and gas sector spends huge amounts of money to make sure the candidates who will support it are elected then to make sure that those politicians know exactly what policies to implement lobby them constantly.
$5.2 million in political donations and more than 22,000 lobbying contacts
In the period in question, oil and gas lobbyists were having an average of 14 contacts a day with government officials in BC. That was on top of the $5.2 million that was committed to political campaigns between 2008 and 2015 in BC, a significant amount of money in this relatively small political forum.
Plus all the wonderful press that the oil and gas sector seems to get here for free.
It's not that we don't have viable options to fossil fuels, it's that because of a pre-existing economic and political advantage the fossil fuels sector is effectively killing their competition before they can even get started.
The tail now wages the dog, we are no longer being served by the fossil fuels sector, everything and everyone is being sacrificed in an endless pursuit of greater market control and profit by this one sector.
In Australia it's coal and natural gas, here in Canada it is all three, but especially the tar sands bitumen that some would sacrifice anything to keep producing no matter the impacts.
The center for tar sands production burned down in 2016 due to an April heat wave with temperatures in the 20s C at a time when it can be -20 C at that time of year. It's highly likely that climate change played some role in that disaster, but it had almost no impact on government, business and public support for the oil and gas sector there.
There is a rare cancers spike in the region almost certainly due to the chemicals emitted by bitumen processing, but that hasn't detered the industry one bit. The doctor who reported it was fired.
Doctor who raised alarm about cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan let go
The fish in the nearby rivers and lakes are also diseased by the massive tar sands projects.
Fish deformities linked to oil pollution in U.S. and Alberta
Exactly who is this sector serving if it destroying the capacity of the Earth to support life including us.
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nigelj at 17:33 PM on 18 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
Doug_C @3 says "There's something totally off at a systemic in government, the press and the private sector. We have international summit after summit going back decades where policy makers...And yet nothing effective at a systemic level has been done."
There sure is, but for the answer perhaps read the recent article on this website titled "Fossil fuel political giving outdistances renewables 13 to one" describing how American fossil fuel corporations fund political campaigns and poltical lobbying far more than renewables corporations do the same. Politicians won't want to offend their sugar daddies. Perhaps its similar in Canada?
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bozzza at 17:18 PM on 18 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Unless you make eating meat illegal there's no way it can make a significant impact because it's consumption is inelastic. Put up the price and people will just eat less vegetables and smoke a few less cigarettes!! They might even refuse to work efficiently and give the ever expanding Governments who think own them less taxes to feed on?
Basically, I can't see it being the first port-of-call.
Population Growth is the elephant in the room and mass immigration is just a confounding factor of that. Sure, it can be argued as you import those who didn't eat much meat to the first world where they will inevitably become bigger consumers of meat then emissions will increase but that aint the fault of the consuming voter of the host country who never invited them in the first place.
It surely does contribute a lot, but to say Population Growth and Mass Immigration don't push it is a corruption of thought.
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bozzza at 17:01 PM on 18 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Alan, CH4 converts to CO2 ....
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bozzza at 16:19 PM on 18 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
What is a system? Governments are designed to work slowly - they can never produce but only consume.
Systems, whatever they happen to be, break down over time just like everything else and only life can put them back together.
"The people lead--> Governments follow..." (I'm sure it wasn't only Arnold Schwarzenegger that said that one!)
Wasn't someone designing a liquid metal battery????
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Doug_C at 14:55 PM on 18 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
There's something totally off at a systemic in government, the press and the private sector. We have international summit after summit going back decades where policy makers supposedly come to agreement on how to ensure ecological integrity without which we won't have an Earth to live on like the Rio summit way back in 1992. Climare change specific international accords to definitively act on this critical issue like Kyoto over 20 years ago and the Paris accord less than five years ago. Story after story in the press about the catastrophic impacts of climate change already. Some nations like Canada have declared a climate emergency.
And yet nothing effective at a systemic level has been done. Canada may have delcared a climate emergency, but some provinces are fighting tooth and nail to maintain massive fossil fuels exploitation for decades more. Even the federal government here claims to be behind a real climate change mitigation plan, but then also touts oil and gas as our main economic driver for the foreseeable future.
It seems that no one with the power to actually implement the critical policy changes is willing to do so. In the US Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Accord and if the conservative party had won the last election in Canada last fall it would have likely done the same.
It ran on the platform of an oil and gas energy corridor spanning all of Canada to ensure that nothing impeded the sector in the future like the delay in building the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in BC right now.
Conservative government would create national energy corridor, Scheer says Social Sharing
When we look at the catastrophic impacts already and how precarious life itself is becoming on Earth, fossil fuels business as usual should be a reckless fringe cause shunned by all who want an actual future.
But instead the fossil fuels agenda is the linchpin of some of the most powerful nations and parties that govern them.
And we get catastrophic impacts like massive wildfires that are driving some species extinct, the disconnect here is horrific.
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Eclectic at 14:15 PM on 18 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
[Apologies for my long post. Skippable, because not overflowing with pearls of wisdom.]
BarbNoon1 , thank you for your reply. And I do appreciate your points of the ethical and environmental aspects of veganism, and I wish you well (though I don't "get" the full Vegans' opposition to the ovo-lactarian diet, especially regarding children).
I hope you do keep a low profile. For analogies, there's the old saying: "Too many cooks spoil the broth". Admittedly it's a rather poor analogy . . . but I am sure you'll understand the relevant aspect of the analogy. Your own medical analogy can be somewhat deficient ~ while true in some cases, yet there are other cases where patients react poorly when hit with several bits of bad news at once. Where they deal with things best if information is presented to them over time, and in a sequential prioritized manner.
At the heart of what I was saying, is that the climate scientists should speak up about the need for (gradual) cessation of fossil fuels. That is the highest priority.
They should not (at least for several decades) even mention veganism. In the same way, Vegans should mention ethical aspects and should not mention global warming. Each group should stay in their own Public Relations sphere.
As I said, it would be counterproductive to combine the messages ~ because the blowback from the Pro-CO2 lobby/propagandists would be huge.
The same propagandists would ramp up the (not-new) idea that veganism is (to Americans) a "Left Wing" lifestyle . . . leading down the slippery slope to Ungodly Socialism (=Communism) and to the overthrow of Sacred Free Market Capitalism & the Constitution, and to the loss of Liberties, and to the installation of Tyranny, and to (most heinous sin of all) the Increase of Taxes. Gasp.
Well, enough humor ~ but BarbNoon1 , you know that's sort of how it would be stated and/or implied, as they welded AGW and veganism into a single political threat.
#
Yet, Vegans of the world ~ time is on your side. A high percentage of the world population is now urban-living, with food coming increasingly in packaged supermarket form, without any of the dirt-under-the-fingernails aspects involved in killing & preparing. While most people are omnivorous and like cooked meat, there is an increasing squeamishness present, which the Vegan lobby can work on. Nor should meat-lovers despair, for the food scientists are gaining expertise in giving plant protein a "meaty" flavor & texture. And on the horizon, is vat-grown muscle-like cell culture (though possibly that approach may be short-circuited by super-hi-tech GM soy, etc.)
All that I ask is that Vegans keep off the AGW bandwagon, and (changing analogies) that they not try to push two barrows at the same time. Because they would almost certainly (and unintentionally) sabotage the climate-change barrow.
And there's a danger it could facilitate the Pro-CO2 lobby in creating "False Flag" veganistic operations, as part of its propaganda efforts. (Even the true Vegans would eventually lose out over that.) There's already enough of trolling & False Flagging in action by the anti-science propagandists.
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nigelj at 12:31 PM on 18 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
The current bushfires are indeed unprecedented in several ways which is particularly concerning. The denialists have leaped on the 1974 Australian bushfire season, which had 117 million hecatres burned for the season as a whole. The denialists do not mention almost all this area was grasslands in central Australia, and had zero effect on their economy and wasn't even noticed until satellite data came in. The Guardian should have mentioned all this in passing, to help neutralise the denialists rhetoric.
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Doug_C at 10:53 AM on 18 January 2020How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires
Canada places right after Australia on the Climate Chnge Performance Index at 55th place. We do have a carbon tax at the federal level, but there are so many expemtions for large industrial polluters that it is next to meaningless. The same goes for the carbon tax that was introduced over a decade ago in BC, but allows exemptions for some of the largest greenhouse gas emitters like the natural gas sector in this province.
John Horgan offers tax break incentives to $40B Kitimat LNG project
When you include methane leakage from gas wells, the sector could have have the same climate change impacts as coal production of the same level.
We also have our wildfire issues here in the Canadian west although the death toll has not been as horrific as in Austrlia. That is probably due to luck more than anything else as thousands of people were driving through flames to escape the early 2016 spring fires in central Alberta.
Harrowing Fort McMurray wildfire escape
In BC in both 2017 and 2018 we were extremely lucky there were no known fatalties from the massive fires across the province. My brother and his family still live in the central BC city where I grew up, he spent most of his career in forestry fighting fires in the summer. 2017 he and his wife went to a small neighbourhood outside of town to help a friend move the essentials out of her house as they were evacuated from a fire my brother said was already burning right in the subdivision. They then hurried home and packed their own essentials as the entire city of over 20,000 received an evacution order.
They were the last car out of the city heading north with fire burning on both sides of the road and went and stayed with family in a small city an hours drive north. Until much of that area was also evacuated, they then drove the seven hours down here witnessing fire after fire along the way.
My brother was still in shock after he was describing this odyssey and as I said, he fought fires as a living starting with rapid response in the 1980s where they were dropped from helicopter into alpine terrain to put out fires before they had a chance to spread.
He's not easily rattled, but these fires are like nothing anyone here has ever seen and it is the same across the globe.
That year wasn't as bad here, partly because the fire services did a stellar job, I spent one Sunday afternoon watching a trio of amphibious water bombers make pass after pass on a small fire buring about 1 kilometer north of my home. It was fascinating to watch, they'd approach from the west over some low mountains about ten seconds apart, drop their loads of water then continue down to the large lake below, scoop another load of water and loop around to make another pass. They did this for six hours with refueling breaks until the fire was out.
There was no stopping the wildfire that started in that area the next year it took off so fast and burned over 4,000 hectares, over 30 homes and shut down the main highway for days. I was ready to leave immediately if the wind have shifted towards this area.
We don't live in normal times, we are not served at all by policy makers who behave as if fossil fuel business as usual is anything else than a growing catastrophe for not just us humans but life itself.
As Australia is finding probably more than most other places on Earth. How many hundreds of thousands or even millions of species will be lost when the last of the Great Barrier Reef dies.
We are being sold a fantasy and getting ashes in exchange.
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Eclectic at 10:51 AM on 18 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Sgt_Wookie , I take my hat off to MA Rodger for his short description of the physics. Not a full exposition, but nicely succinct. And for myself, I have taken a copy of his graph of infrared energy leaving the planet ~ it's a fine demonstration of the Atmospheric IR windows and the absorption effect of water, carbon dioxide, ozone, and methane.
Your denialist friend is probably so heavily invested in his Motivated Reasoning that he's not persuadable to change his mind (or his attitude), so there's little point in trying to educate him. Though I'm not knowing the circumstances of your "interaction" with him, nevertheless it's the case that most online interactions have a number of silent observers ~ and they benefit when denialist nonsense gets contradicted. But I am sure you're already aware of that . . . and aware of the old saying regarding: ".... when good men do nothing."
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BarbNoon1 at 10:20 AM on 18 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Eclectic, I disagree that I must "simmer down," "be subtle and indirect," and keep a "low profile." But thanks for trying to give me what you think is good advice.
I am upset about climate change and you should be too, but perhaps you think I am upset simply because of animals, and we certainly know there is no justification for that!
However, let's not quibble anymore. I expected a "Skeptical Science" administrator to answer my first statement, but I made an error above and do not need it answered. I thought the "37% of human-caused methane emissions, and about 65% of human nitrous oxide emissions” above was about the United States, so it seemed way too large for just 3% US GHG emissions in the U.S. However, it says, plain as day, that the figure was “globally” and not “U.S.” I was pretty fatigued last night, but sometimes my brain just refuses to see what I am starting at.
No, I did not know the answer, Eclectic. Since you said that twice, I will answer it twice. I did not know the answer.
I also do not agree with your answer to only talk about fossil fuels. I agree to talk about fossil fuels, but not JUST about fossil fuels. If a man has a heart attack and a slow-growing cancer, the doctor does not tell the man to take medicine for his heart attack, but not tell him to take medicine for his cancer just because the doctor surmises another heart attack will kill him before the cancer. He treats both of them, he gives the truth, he explains the risks and he hopes the patient will comply with his recommendations.
I can do all the cutting down of leaving lights on, keeping the thermostat down, and writing my representatives about doing something about climate change, but I cannot afford a new car, much less an electric or hybrid one. But I can eat no meat and dairy with every meal and every snack.
It is easy once you become determined. With all the damage that animal agriculture is doing (review the original post above as well as my post) I will repeat the statement that environmentalists should be vegan, should be talking about veganism, and should do a positive post on that subject to point out all the ways it can help, without it sandwiched between trying to diminish it, and most of the readers thinking it means it is not important enough to deal with. I am sure they think their readers will do some heavy thinking about their articles, but it doesn't always reflect that way in the comments section.
No, it will not take several generations for a good share of the world to go vegan. The UK is far ahead of the U.S., so if you are in the U.S., you may not be aware of the daily food additions and the number of people trying veganism in other parts of the world. We vegans have a lot of plans (but we remain low key, subtle, and we have a long plan).
I do not see the need for baby steps – most people reading this are adults – take adult steps.
I appreciate the article above, but Cowspiracy has always stated what exact comparison they were making with the animal agriculture to transportation, and they have not changed that post. Skeptical Science has clarified it, stating 3% is U.S., but also stating that 9% of deforestation is from animal agriculture, and many other damages, that show we should be talking about answers to the fossil fuel issue AS WELL AS answers to the issues caused by animal agriculture. -
Sgt_Wookie92 at 08:59 AM on 18 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Thank you very much for your responses, 575 Eclectic & 576 MA Rodger.
- this is exactly what I was worried about, incorrect information with enough truth to make it seem legitimate - I fear presenting it won't do much for the comments author who seems wholey subscribed to his reality, but has given me a better understanding to answer any similar points made in the future, and some new papers to read. Thanks again.
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michael sweet at 07:08 AM on 18 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
BobinNH:
I posted a reply to you here where it is on topic.
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michael sweet at 07:07 AM on 18 January 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Tallguy1000,
I posted a reply to you here where it is on topic.
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michael sweet at 07:06 AM on 18 January 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
BobinNH and Tallguy 1000,
I am posting here because this thread has many posts about nuclear energy. The thread the moderator linked is much shorter. Please read the previous posts so that we do not have to reargue points that have already been decided.
Abbott 2012 gives about 15 reasons why nuclear cannot produce more than 5% of world power. Nuclear supporters have not responded to this article indicating that they agree with his assessment. Please address the problems Abbott describes including: finding locations for the 15,000 reactors needed to produce all power (if you use modular reactors you need 50,000), the fact that uranium will run out in 5 years if that many reactors are built, there are many rare materials used in the construction of nuclear power plants that will run out if 15,000 plants are built.
In addition nuclear is not economic and takes decades to build.
Tallguy: Nuclear power zealots have been arguing for a long time that renewable energy will take up too much space. Jacobson 2018 has calculated the amount of space required and found that it is very moderate. As Abbott points out, if you build out a nuclear power system you will expect a major accident like Fukushima once a month worldwide and 1-2 times per year in the USA. The restriction zones will quickly become larger than the amount of land used for wind and solar power.
BobinNH: you have obviously not read any papers (there are hundreds) that describe future renewable energy systems. Jacobson et al 2018 above, Connelly et al (unfortuntely now paywalled) and Brown et al (lists many other studies that describe renewable energy systems) answer some of your questions. You worry about "airplanes, trains, shipping and trucks".
Many trains are already electric, problem solved. Much trucking can be shipped in electric trains. Local deliveries can use electric trucks. That could solve all trucking but if some small amount remained electrofuels could be used (although they are ineficient). Airplanes are hard. Designers have announced electric planes with ranges of 1500 miles. Jacobson suggests hydrogen fueled planes. Long haul flights could use electrofuels or people could go by train and ship. Shipping could use electrofuels, biofuels or smaller ships could be fully electric.
If you ignore the solutions discussed in the peer reviewed literature it is easy to claim that nothing can be solved.
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ubrew12 at 04:54 AM on 18 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
BobInNH: They are nonrenewable resources. If you can't operate airplanes without them, then sooner or later you cannot operate airplanes, whether climate action is taken or not. The U.S. Air Force and Navy have funded programs to research biofuels, but Republicans in Congress defunded it. So, I guess airplanes need fossil fuels until Congress says otherwise.
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BobInNH at 02:36 AM on 18 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
You say: "Then I looked right at him and I said "we have to get off gas, oil and coal. We must end its use, completely."
I'm curious, would you ban airplanes, trains, shipping and trucks? Have you thought about the impact of those bans?
Also, based on your article, I'm sure you are a big fan and fully promote nuclear energy. It's by far the cleanest and most environmentally friendly form of power we have.
Moderator Response:[DB] Please take discussions of nuclear power to a more appropriate thread, like this one. Be prepared to support your claims with reference citations.
Sloganeering snipped.
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MA Rodger at 00:53 AM on 18 January 2020Hockey stick is broken
alisonjane @166,
The paper you found had the broken link in the OP is McIntyre & McKitrick (2005) 'Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance'
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Tallguy1000 at 00:43 AM on 18 January 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
While human population breathing out does not in itself cause harm - more humans mean more homes. The majority of homes use fossil fuels both during construction and while habitated. Homes are often built on de-forested land too, so my argument would be that an increase in population would absolutely cause an increase in CO2 emmissions. The manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels will contribute greatly to the impact on the environment, not to mention the thousands of square miles of land they'll require and their affects on widlife and the countryside. I think it's time we stopped thinking so negatively about nuclear power, and concentrate our efforts into building the thousands of nuclear power plants that will be required over the next 25 years. They will have less net impact on the environment over the long term, and economies of scale will make them cheaper.
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Eclectic at 14:38 PM on 17 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
BarbNoon1 , you already know the answer to your question.
And whether the "food from animals" industry is responsible for 20% or 10% of GHG emissions, is largely irrelevant to your point.
The highest priority for the world, is to bring global warming to a halt. For the sake of all animals as well as us humans. And you know that swinging the appropriately-large proportion of citizens to veganism (or near-veganism) would take many generations.
The scientists are having such slow success battling against the "Pro-CO2" lobby . . . and yet you want them to open a second battle-front in this hard-fought war? History teaches you it would be a most unwise move.
Rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly ~ any major push by scientists to promote veganism in connection with AGW, would result in the severe undermining of the core climate message. The Pro-CO2 lobby/propagandists would see to it, with glee.
BarbNoon1 , you know that.
And when you have simmered down, I suspect you will realize that the best & fastest way to achieve your own aim, is to use a subtle & indirect approach. Low profile. The long game. (Not so emotionally satisfying for you . . . but it is the practical optimum method.)
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BarbNoon1 at 12:41 PM on 17 January 2020Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
AsI am a little confused as to how animal agriculture is responsible for 13–18% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and only 3% in the USA, when later you say “the livestock sector is responsible for about 37% of human-caused methane emissions, and about 65% of human nitrous oxide emissions (mainly from manure), globally. It sure seems like the greenhouse gas emissions would be higher than 13-18% with the latter figures.
In the comments many people claimed regenerative agriculture would work, but I see in a later post about Savory’s unsupported idea about regenerative agriculture, you address why it would not be beneficial. It’s easy to see that smaller, grass fed cows who take longer to grow and fatten means it will take more cows to feed the same number of people, and yes, more methane into the air, and more land used, more water poisoned.
What I do not understand is why intelligent climate scientists are not urging others to go vegan. This idea of “reducing” meat consumption means that people will maybe switch out one beef meal to a chicken or fish meal. With our oceans losing fish, our chickens, pigs and cows using antibiotics, the animal agriculture requiring more land, more Amazon deforestation, more waste in oceans, etc., environmentalists should not ignore that there are serious environmental problems from animal agriculture. Look at the environmental marches – you see kids eating hamburgers, ice cream and hot dogs while holding their “reduce paper” signs (made of paper). You see large environmental leaders suggesting we “reduce meat a little.” Why say that, when getting rid of meat and dairy altogether would make a much more livable planet? (Comments that usually follow are angry people saying they won't give up meat because it is their choice.)
People protect their cut up animal parts, even after watching the horrid abuse on CATO farms AND “humane” farms and unimaginable treatment in slaughterhouses or from homemade slaughtering. People start pretending they eat all their meals from a farm that looks like a farm sanctuary, and where the animals are killed in an instant. That is a fantasy.
Next farmers will transition to “grass fed” farms and then we will break it to them that it is not sustainable, and they will have to transition again to a sustainable non-animal farm. This takes valuable time and money. We don't have this kind of time! Ideas like "regenerative agriculture" are making us stall in what we must do. -
alisonjane at 12:06 PM on 17 January 2020Hockey stick is broken
Just joined and wanted to read background on hockey stick. I tried Mcintrye 2004, but it just goes to AGU home page. Is there a correct link?
Cheers
aJ
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Eclectic at 11:20 AM on 17 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Wol@19 refers to video by Mallen Baker : "The best argument AGAINST CO2 causing climate change?" (posted Jan 7, 2020)
Actually quite a good video, properly science-based. My impression is that Mallen Baker composed the title as clickbait for denialists. His video in essence shows that there is not any good argument against CO2.
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ubrew12 at 10:15 AM on 17 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Wol@19 said: "Here's a first class argument 'against' CO2 causing climate change." For a response, check out this websites 'Most Used Climate Myths' #74.
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nigelj at 06:38 AM on 17 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
barryn56 @42, just my 2 cents worth. Climate models have proven to be quite good at predicting the future, including temperature trends. Go to realclimate.org and theres an article on their home page about half way down.
Yes there are uncertainties about the more distant future due to uncertainties about clouds etc, but the weight of evidence from modelling, temperatures over the last couple of years, and the paleo history suggests we are in for a lot of warming. The thing is a lot of evidence points in the same direction, and it would be foolish to dismiss that.
You mentioned something that appears to have been deleted due to sloganeering rules. You said something like cloudy nights are very warm because of water droplets and ice in the clouds, implying that water vapour and CO2 are very weak greenhouse gases. Please note that humid nights with no clouds are also very warm. I'm not a climate expert, and some healthy scepticism is good, but dont jump to conclusions before doing your homework very carefully.
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I had an intense conversation at work today.
Sorry, the correct revision by Arrhenius was to 4C/doubling of CO2, from the 1908 book Worlds in the Making.
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I had an intense conversation at work today.
barryn56 - See this discussion on attribution; there are numerous papers referenced that demonstrate we're responsible for current warming.
For an earlier reference specifically about the effects of CO2 increases, see Arrhenius 1896 - "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground". His initial estimate of temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 was high, perhaps 6C, but he revised it a few years later upon reviewing the standard samples he got from Prof. Langley of the Smithsonian (properly compensating for mutual displacement of CO2 and water vapor in the samples) to ~4.3C per doubling - which is within the current 1.5-4.5 range estimated by the IPCC.
It's basic science, and we've known about it for quite a while. Increasing CO2 warms the planet in a way that matches theory and observations; nothing else can account for it.
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MA Rodger at 20:26 PM on 16 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Sgt_Wookie92 @574,
You present a 1,000-word denialist essay on why an increase in atmospheric CO2 will not reduce IR out into space. It is an interesting polemic as it does quite a good job of addressing to some extent all the various descriptions of the GHG mechanisms, descriptions both actual and through analogy. It is however, as described by Eclectic @575, a pack of nonsense.
I could go through paragraph by paragraph if you wish. A blow-by-blow account would be required as the central misconception the denialist employs isn't presented entirely within any single paragraph. Perhaps it would be easier to describe the GHG mechanism and allow to pick out the crazy talk for yourself.
....
The planet surface emits IR in the waveband roughly 5μ to 50μ with the peak at 15μ. The profile is dependent on temperature. If there were no GHGs, all that IR would shoot off into space. But the GHGs actually capture pretty-much all of this surface-emitted IR, the energy converted into waggles in GHGs and almost all of those waggles, through collisions, are converted into thermal energy.
But GHGs also go waggly because of those numerous collisions and that ensures the GHGs will effectively emit just as much IR as it is receives. CO2 absorbs/emits at 2.9μ, 4.3μ and 15μ but only the 15μ operates as the atmosphere/planet is too cold for the shorter wavebands.
And at 15μ, CO2 is the only GHG operating so all the IR at 15μ that reaches space will all be emitted by CO2. The amount of 15μ IR is now depentent on the temperature of the CO2 emitting it out into space. For that the CO2 needs a clear shot at space, high enough so the CO2 above it is no longer a complete blanket. Presently that altitude-with-a-clear-shot-to-space is up in the cold upper troposphere. The graphic below shows that CO2 temperature is far lower than the surface temperature. (The black trace is measured, the red is modelled by MODTRAN, an on-line model from UoC.)
If more CO2 is added to the atmosphere, that altitude-with-a-clear-shot-to-space will get higher (CO2 is well-mixed up to 50km, well up into the stratosphere) and, while that altitude remains below the tropopause, the clear-shot temperature will get colder so less IR will be emitted into space. (The very central part of the 15μ waveband does have a higher clear-shot altitude above the tropopause and is seen in the graphic as a little spike. That spike will grow with additional CO2 while the size of the surrounding dip(s) will continue to increase. See Zhong & Haig 2013).
....
Most of the nonsense set out within the denialist polemic should be understandable given this description (although I'd happily expand on individual points, perhaps some brickbats to lob back at the denialist). I'd just add here that some may not be acquainted with Feldman et al (2015) which is the paper that measured CO2's IR on the "Great Plains and North Slope of Alaska."
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Doug_C at 18:56 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
barryn56 @35
As per this article
Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world
Perceptions versus reality?
Last year we set a record for wildfire activity in this province BC, the year before that was the third worse on record and 2009 one of the worst.
2018 was also California's worst wildfire season on record.
We are seeing the same pattern in Siberia and also in Australia where as michael sweet comments they are seeing wildfires in places where they have never been encountered before.
The same trend in Europe and the Amazon was on fire last year, a rainforest where wildfires are typically not of that extent.
This all in the context of most of the highest global average temperatures being in this century just 20 years old.
Climate change science is based on observation and theory that dates back centuries, are you asking that we discount the role that carbon dioxide plays in moderating the Earth's heat budget. Something that was well established over a century ago, this is hardly new science that needs to be deciphered.
If as you claim you have a genuine desire to learn the full extent of this subject then take the time to learn it to the depth necessary. Spend a few days or if you have the time a few weeks going through this and other resources.
James Balog has been traveling the world documenting on film and video the rapid retreat of the cryosphere, if you want a visual representation if the ability of carbon dioxide to trap heat then view his work at;
Or the works of James Hansen at Columbia and GISS
Or the IPCC 2017 Report
Or many other resources that others here can fill you in on.
If you are presenting a viewpoint that runs counter to what almost all the evidence is telling us then in the end that comes down to you chosing those resources that are presenting a contrary position.
And while you can ask for assistence in determing the most likely explanation, you simply can't demand that anyone "prove" to your satisfaction this isn't happening or that it can't be carbon dioxide responsible.
In the end that is an impossible task with those who refuse to accept any case that this is so no matter how strong the theoretical and practical observational evidence that supports this.
The simple fact is, carbon dioxide is the most important persistent gas in the atmosphere for moderating the heat budget for the Earth's surface. This was recognized in the 1850s and quantified in the 1890s.
The case for this has only grown stronger in the century that followed as theory and experimental equipment has evolved to provide a very clear picture of this subject.
We know the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by over 120ppm in the last century and we also know that the Earth's average temperature has increased as well as EM radiation in the spectrum absorbed and re-emitted by CO2 has increased at the Earth's surface consistent with far more of it being intercepted by all the extra CO2 we have emitted.
At about 100 times the rate of natural tectonic activity.
Are Volcanoes or Humans Harder on the Atmosphere?
You need to look at the entire picture to get an understanding of the scope and impacts of climate change and the still massive output of human generated CO2 every year.
Cherry picking extremely isolated subtopics and trying to conflate that into real doubt about what is one of the most solidly grounded topics in science today simply isn't genuine in any sense.
Look at the entire forest - to see that much of it is on fire - instead of picking an isolated tree that happens to be in a region that hasn't been impacted yet and claim that is indicative of the real picture.
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JohnSeers at 18:27 PM on 16 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
@ClimateBuddha 402
Look up "Trenberth Energy Budget". There are many images of this on the internet showing the longwave nature of infrared. You should be able to find more information quite easily.
I did not touch on the downward radiation effect but MA Rodger covered this at 401.
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Doug_C at 18:17 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
barryn56 @42
If you are genuine in your pursuit of a clearer understanding of this issue then use this very expansive resource, there is very little around climate change and the role that carbon dioxide plays in moderating the Earth's heat budget that hasn't been covered here repeatedly.
If you're posting unsupported claims that are consistent with a decades long pattern of denial of the best evidence then you are probably going to be moderated for it.
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Eclectic at 18:03 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Barryn56 , if you want information on "Attribution of the present-day total greenhouse effect", then you should go to the top left of the page, to the Search box and type in attribution. That will give you a choice of posts to read.
Alternatively, you could (again, top of page) select from the list of "Most Used Climate Myths". Scroll down until you see a likely candidate. For your case it will be Myth 188 "IPCC human-caused global warming attribution is unfounded". Here you will get the OP discussion plus the comments column discussions. Various references to scientific papers are to be found in the OP and often in the subsequent comments.
For reasons of economy & common sense, commenters who state that the Earth is round ~ are (usually) not required to provide supportive peer-reviewed scientific papers from respected journals. And likewise with other well-established facts.
For those (such as yourself) who wish to make novel or extraordinary claims, then you are asked (as seems reasonable) to supply some published research on which you base your claims. If it weren't for this requirement, then the comments columns would fill up with all sorts of bizarre & crackpot ideas.
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barryn56 at 17:00 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Can the posters here produce any papers covering the claims? My posts have been moderated (rightly so) because I didn't put paper references. I object to the denier refence, I am trying to be objective and question the research on CO2 (e.g. Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect
Gavin A. Schmidt,1 Reto A. Ruedy,1 Ron L. Miller,1 and Andy A. Lacis1) one of the models estimating the effects of doubling CO2 and the resultant forcing. -
Doug_C at 13:50 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
nigelj
I've watched it happen. In 2018 we had a wet spring and early summer with plenty of growth. Then about three weeks of hot dry weather that dried everything out. Then the first thunderstorm came through with a tiny bit of rain but a great deal of lightening. About 15 minutes later as I was walking into the nearby town there was a small peak to the south that was already fully engulfed in flame and smoke and a couple of kilometers to the north there was smoke from a fire that eventually burned over 4,000 hectares, homes and shut down the main highway for days. Directly across a large lake to the east a fire started from the same storm that eventually burned over 100,000 hectares. Later that week a thunder storm system started over 600 fires across the province in a day, there is simply no way to even fight most of these fires with limited resources.
The year before my brother and his family were down here for a month because the 20,000 population city where they lived was evacuated due to the massive fires in central BC.
My parents who live just across the border in Washington state were on evacuation notice for over a month in 2015 as there were huge wildfires in all directions, they weren't sure how they would have escaped if they had received an evacution order.
And with these fires comes the smoke, two summers in a row with most days sunless due to the dense smoke which was so intense at times that people with asthma - like me - had to find refuge in buildings with filtration systems or wear masks.
The smoke was so bad in 2018 from the fires here that they were issuing air quality alerts in Winnipeg Manitoba 1,500 kilometers away.
Manitoba affected by BC wildfire smoke, special air quality alert in effect
We've all here been watching fo decades as the pine beetle population which is controlled by prolonged bitter cold has exploded because we no longer get prolonged cold spells of under of -30 C for a couple of weeks at a time. This alone has wiped out about 18 million hectares of forest and fundamentally changed the region.
With everythting that is happening I simply don't understand how anyone is still able to deny the existence of this growing catastrophe.
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Eclectic at 12:20 PM on 16 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Sgt_Wookie , your friend's comments are an interesting mixture of truths, half-truths, and plain falsehoods.
Somehow, for whatever reason [probably Motivated Reasoning] he has gotten himself into a tangled jungle of confusion. Perhaps he is arguing in bad faith (and is trying to mislead himself and/or his readers) ~ or perhaps it's worse than that, for in places he is bordering on a "word salad" of scientific terms.
He needs to go back to the basic textbooks, and start from scratch. Though I suspect he has too much hubris to accept that the expert scientists have knowledge that he himself lacks. If he were more reasonable, he could start by reading the OP of this thread, and the 500-ish comments thereafter (which also contain some pearls of explanation). But he has closed his mind to the mainstream science (science, easily found via SkS).
Best if you find some indirect way of exposing him. You would waste too much time in correcting him point by point, for he seems the tiresome argumentative sort of fellow who would spend hours in a rearguard battle as he retreats.
(BTW, I love his comment: "[SkS] has been repeatedly known to provide false information and is deceitful." What a laugh! And another strong sign of the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.)
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nigelj at 10:21 AM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Doug C @38
Fyi: Lightning is Sparking More Boreal Forest Fires in Far North America
Wildfires in the boreal forests of northern Canada and Alaska have been increasing in frequency and the amount of area burned, and the drivers of large fire years are still poorly understood. But recent NASA-funded research offers at least one possible cause: more lightning. As global warming continues, lightning storms and warmer conditions are expected to spread farther north, meaning fire could significantly alter the landscape over time.
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Sgt_Wookie92 at 10:19 AM on 16 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Hello,
Most denier arguments i receive i can answer & understand thanks to studies in mechanical engineering and having a decent grasp on the science behind what im reading. But this one has me stumped as its not an area im well versed in, and im wondering if anyone can afford the time to help me understand if what he is saying is correct/incorrect, and why:
___________________You are linking to Skeptical Science which is under the control of cartoonist John Cook and his friends. This website has been repeatedly known to provide false information and is deceitful. But I will address the issues raised here in the claim that the effect is not saturated.
There is a limited amount of IR emitted from the Earth at each frequency.
At the center of the 15 micron band ALL of the IR is captured by CO2. There can be no more captured. This is not up for debate in any way shape or form.
The method by which IR is captured by CO2 depends upon the ability of the CO2 molecule to match the IR being emitted in both frequency and in orientation of the charge formed by the atoms. The frequency of IR has to match the frequency of the CO2 molecules. It also has to match the orientation in space of the charge of the molecule.
The CO2 molecule vibrates at a certain frequency determined by the atomic weights and charges of the Oxygen and Carbon Atoms. This frequency has a minor variation from the center frequency as one travels outward from the center of the 15 micron band.
SO as more CO2 molecules are added to the atmosphere we see absorption increase at the center of the 15 micron band so that total absorption of all the IR is accomplished closer to the ground. No additional IR becomes absorbed. The Center becomes saturated with respect to its ability to absorb IR. No more IR is absorbed in the center.
Will some CO2 molecules added capture a few additional IR photons further from the center. Yes, But the numbers will be constantly declining in a logarithmic fashion because the CO2 is not vibrating at the correct frequency. This declining logarithmic function is well known because the frequency distribution of the CO2 molecule causes it to not absorb IR at the edges of the 15 micron band. This gives rise to the requirement of a doubling of CO2 per unit increase of temperature. So if for example there is a 1 degree increase for a doubling of CO2 then for the next degree of increase you need 4 times as much CO2 added.
The function of the ability of CO2 to absorb IR follows a bell as it drops off. Only at the Center of the 15 micron band can any absorption of note take place.
The analogy of restricted flow given in the website is totally wrong. You are not adding water which is restricted by the diameter of an outflow pipe. You are adding heat to the atmosphere which has several methods for releasing it from the Earth, As CO2 populations are added there are more molecules in the stratosphere and above to release the energy to space. CO2 does not just stratify near the ground. Further CO2 does not act as a reservoir for IR energy. The energy is spread over all the atmospheric particles s kinetic energy. Oxygen, Nitrogen, H2O are all absorbing the kinetic energy and being transported vertically and toward the poles throughout the atmosphere.
CO2 molecules become re-excited at every level of the atmosphere via collision. 1.4 % in the 15 micron band frequencies. Throughout the atmosphere below the Stratosphere, The re-excitation of these molecules is a net reduction in atmospheric temperature. Eventually there are feedbacks that serve to increase emission to space such as convection, transfer via circulation of Hadley Cells to the poles and the fact that at the poles emission to space takes place at a lower height. If these feedback mechanisms were not present the Earth would have burned to a cinder long ago. But in the lower atmosphere the excited molecules are quenched again and again by collision they cannot add to the temperature because they subtracted from it to become excited once more.
So why is there this idea that CO2 can absorb outside its natural frequency range floating about on Skeptical Science? Because there are experiments performed with CO2 laser systems where the populations within the laser are manipulated artificially and you CAN cause an expansion of the absorption range by applying charges. It does not occur naturally. But you are considered a know nothing by SS and they have no objection to misleading you. within the laser. this does not occur in the natural world.
The explanation of IR escaping from higher colder regions therefore less IR can escape because it is not energetic enough? Well Electromagnetic radiation energy levels are not determined by temperature. They are determined by frequency. Every electronic technician will tell you that a received signal strength depends on frequency. For example to transmit a VHF TV signal requires substantially less current draw than to transmit a UHF TV signal. That is why Channel 6 in Philadelphia refuses to switch to a UHF channel. The range of the signal is lower but it costs OH so much less. If a 15 micron band photon escapes then a 15 micron band photon escapes and the energy levels are the same.
The idea of IR re-radiation is a false one. Because the collisions in the lower atmosphere constantly are quenching an excited CO2 molecule before it can re-emit. The timing constants are on the order of a billion collisions to one re-emission governed by the Einstein A co-efficient. Only in the upper atmosphere where the molecules are far enough apart to allow for there to be no quenching by collision is there any significant re-emission. This is how the Earth loses energy.
The AERI instruments at the Great Plains and North Slope of Alaska detect IR directly. They are designed to detect a range of frequencies and CO2 is one of them.They are unable to detect incoming CO2 IR without manipulating the received signal against a model frequency. The signal is so small that it can be dismissed as an artifact of generating the simulated signal.
The concept of IR scattering is a false one. The photon either passes through the atmosphere or it is absorbed. At the edges of the absorption curve some IR photons radiate directly to space at 186000 miles per second and some is absorbed and converted directly to heat. It depends on whether or not the CO2 molecule is resonant with the photon frequency.
___________________
any assistance is greatly appreciated, just looking to further understand the issues and evidence/counterevidence i may come across
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Doug_C at 09:15 AM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
"mostly due to the introduction of hundreds of billions of (tons) of additional carbon dioxide."
Important word left out from above.
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Doug Bostrom at 09:14 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
"225 zetajoules is nothing on a 60 years period. The earth receive more than 6K zetajoules a year"
And the central heating system in my house liberates far more energy in a year than does the grease fire on the stove I've just noticed. So I don't need to worry about the grease fire. Let it burn. It's such a relatively small amount of energy, right? :-)
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Doug_C at 09:12 AM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
As far as wildfires go, it's not jsut their extent, but how they start and spread has greatly changed in this region. Our BC summers used to have far more moisture with shorter intervals of hot dry weather. Now we tend to get fairly intense rainfall in early spring and summer then longer period of hot and dry weather as summer progresses. This causes an acceleration of growth in the forests which then dry out and become tinder to start fires.
Then in years like 2017 and 2018, thunder storm systems that can span thousands of square kilometers start hundreds of fires in a very brief period of time. A brother who as a member of the Forest Service here and an expert in fighting wildfires for decades has never seen anything like it. Our father also a forestry expert can attest that even with some of the large wildfires in the 1950s, the situation was never as chaotic and dangerous as it is now.
That's just one tiny window into this critical subject that all the evidence says is about as serious as it gets. When placed in the context of the overall change in climate globally documented on this and many other sites like the Extreme Ice Survey and others plus all the data available from centers of higher learning, GISS, and other research institutes, there's no question that this is happening and almost certainly because we have significantly altered the Earth's radiative balance by changing how the atmosphere exchanges heat with space mostly due to the introduction of hundreds of billions of additional carbon dioxide.
The heat meter constantly running here tells the constant tale and how this become more critical every day.
It can be an intense exchange in trying to explain this to some people. My mother a trained geologist and someone who I usually have a free exchange of ideas with including politics even though we are on different parts of the spectrum, can't talk about climate change because of how emtional she becomes about it.
I've tried to direct her to this site and some others, but I don't she'll ever fully be able to accept the reality of this subject.
The more people who do and who then demand the necessary actions be taken are a benefit to us all. This is a quest anyone who cares about this issue and its implications to life itself on Earth should never give up on.
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Doug Bostrom at 08:55 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
Mathieu, I know you're not calling folks like Gregory Johnson (who runs the American portion of Argo— look him up in Google Scholar, read and understand his papers) liars, so the only remaining plausible (and still charitable) conclusion is that you're suffering from a universal affliction called the Dunning-Kruger effect. That's not a unique and awful reflection on you— it's a fallibility we all share, more or less. Check it out— seconds away on Google.
As to error and confidence interval in the paper's conclusions, now that you've asserted your superior expertise do see Figure 2. It's an open access paper. There's no reason to guess.
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Mathieu18981 at 08:46 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
@doug_bostrom
Anyone using figures like hiroshima bombs and microwaves gibberish is simply trying to confuse the mind of his readers. We have real figures in zetajoules, celsius or farenheit if you are americans. Theses figures everyone understand them and are easily convert to one another.
Everything goes down the drain when you realise the assumption about the margin of error the scientists affirmed they achieve. Its pure madness if you understand statistics requirements.
Finally 225 zetajoules is nothing on a 60 years period. The earth receive more than 6K zetajoules a year meaning with some simple maths : 6K (round up) x 60 = 360 000. Now do a % its 1/1600 of what the earth received in 60 years.
I'm supposed to worry about that? There is many many ways to explain this and remember it is within the margin of error.
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Mathieu18981 at 08:38 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
A study using Zetajoules always make my critical mind goes wild, alarms going on.
99.8% of the globe does not know what is a zetajoules and cannot convert it to a more common metric, the Celsius.
Doing the maths i saw that the ''shocking'' study (from some headlines i saw on MSM) is actually a 0.1 C of increase in the last 60 years. Ok? but it becomes wilder still. The margin of error is 0.003%. I mean come on! Do you really takes us all for retards?
With 4000 buoys from Argo you can't pretend having such a low margin of error. It is a deceptive affirmation, as every buoy needs to mesure the temperature of the sea the size of Portugal AND 2 KMs deep.
Does anyone here believe a reading in Lisbon actually gives the temperatures of Porto, Faro or Lagos? It is ridiculous and does not help the narrative at all.
I'm 100% for waking up people but the data and affirmation needs to be strong and realistic. In the end, anyone with some understanding of margin of error can understand the results of the ''study'' IS within the margin of error and what does this say? Nothing here move along...
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Bob Loblaw at 08:27 AM on 16 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
ClimateBUddha:
As a kid, I was told there was a tooth fairy. This seems to have changed.
Consider three possibilities:
- You are not correctly remembering what you were told as a kid.
- The person who told you that was lying.
- The person who told you that was uninformed.
You'll need to give a much more concrete example of where you "heard that", and under what context. It does not resemble anything I"ve heard in the 40 years I've been studying climatology.
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