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John Hartz at 01:17 AM on 19 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
From SkS's handy-dandy Climate Glossary:
Climate change
Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: ‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods’. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes. See also Climate variability; Detection and Attribution.
Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.
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John Hartz at 01:13 AM on 19 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
From SkS's handy-dandy Climate Glossary:
Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse gases effectively absorb thermal infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth’s surface, by the atmosphere itself due to the same gases, and by clouds. Atmospheric radiation is emitted to all sides, including downward to the Earth’s surface. Thus, greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system. This is called the greenhouse effect. Thermal infrared radiation in the troposphere is strongly coupled to the temperature of the atmosphere at the altitude at which it is emitted. In the troposphere, the temperature generally decreases with height. Effectively, infrared radiation emitted to space originates from an altitude with a temperature of, on average, –19°C, in balance with the net incoming solar radiation, whereas the Earth’s surface is kept at a much higher temperature of, on average, +14°C. An increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases leads to an increased infrared opacity of the atmosphere, and therefore to an effective radiation into space from a higher altitude at a lower temperature. This causes a radiative forcing that leads to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the so-called enhanced greenhouse effect.
Definition courtesy of IPCC AR4.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:12 PM on 18 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
Johnb,
The term 'Greenhouse effect' is related to what is being understood to be altered by human activity.
But everything simply getting warmer by 1.5C degrees or 2.0C or 3.5C or 5.0C is 'not what is happening'.
What is happening is rapid difficult to deal with changes of: climate, sea level, ocean temperature, ocean acidification, magnitude and extent of glaciers, ...
Talking about 'Human impacts on The Greenhouse Effect' misses very important concerns, and can even be welcomed by claiming 'A little warmer would be better'.
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Johnb at 10:45 AM on 18 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
I had hoped to acknowledge that Climate Change is dependent on but different to the Greenhouse effect. I understood that the additional heat/solar energy retained in Earth's atmosphere increased turbulence which in its turn disrupted established weather patterns, transferred some of that additional,energy into the planets oceans to allow for thermal expansion, ice melt, stronger cyclones etc. etc. it is the work of Fourier, Tindall & Foote and Arrenhuis that provided the basic science for the retention of a quantum of solar energy in the planets atmosphere. I'm obviously missing something if they are independent of each other.
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Johnb at 09:10 AM on 18 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
I suspect it would have been better policy to have continued using the tag 'Greenhouse Effect' rather than move to 'Climate Change'. Climate Change doesn't arrive with a label round its neck of a tag in its ear so allows for obfuscation, denial and 'tobacco isn't harmful' style funding to create confusion. The Science of the Greenhouse effect was established in the 19thC and remains predictive and can readily be understood by the person in the street. This is how the atmosphere retains heat, vary these parameters and as day follows night global mean temperature will vary. Increase CO2 equivalent and the planet warms over a lag period to a new equilibrium. Add heat to a gas or liquid increases turbulence in direct proportion to any such increase, Climate Change is a variable of any change and by definition events are unpredictable beyond the fact they will occur.
Moderator Response:[DB] The terms Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change describe different things.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:27 AM on 18 December 2019There is no consensus
Patrick$$ @862,
It is well established understanding that expanded awareness and improved understanding are easily compromised by misleading marketing that is based on carefully prepared fictions that are based on minimal factual evidence and designed to appeal to a person's developed preferences.
There is a massive diversity of evidence supporting the climate science consensus understanding that human activities, particularly fossil fuel use, are significantly impacting the global climate in ways that are detrimental to the future generations.
Revisit the claim-making by the people you list from the context of that understanding. They may sound reasonable. But are they Really helping expand awareness and improve understanding?
Apply the same context of understanding to the criticism of Currie's story, and any 'concern' about her 'concern' is likely just another part of the fiction she is making-up in an attempt to appeal to learning resistant believers who are easily tempted to prefer poor excuses for harmful behaviour rather than expand their awareness and improve their understanding in ways that would require them to change their mind about how they like to live.
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PatrickSS at 05:58 AM on 18 December 2019There is no consensus
Thx so much for your replies.
It’s incredibly unfortunate that climate science has become political – on both sides IMO.
Actually I don’t feel that any of you have really engaged with my main argument: does this page give a fair summary of scientists’ views? E.g. does sticking up the percentage “91%” give a fair summary of Vergehhen’s data? (Obviously not.)
Science is IMO very subject to fashions. When authors, reviewers and the people who award grants all have the same point of view it can all go wrong. E.g. a few years ago almost everyone believed that fat in the diet was a kind of poison – which we now know is nonsense.
What I notice is that most scientists who are contrarians are either old and retired, or else somehow supporting themselves on private means or as consultants. That doesn’t seem like a good situation. It could mean that only crazy old men and women believe this nonsense, or it could mean that young climate scientists would damage their careers if they expressed contrarian views. MA Roger @857, I've listened to Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen and William Happer on youtube and none of them seem crazy, they seem to be good scientists. Judith Curry said that she couldn’t get her work published. I’ve just checked what she said – in fact she did publish one reviewer’s comment:
“Overall, there is the danger that the paper is used by unscrupulous people to create confusion or to discredit climate or sea-level science. Hence, I suggest that the author reconsiders the essence of its contribution to the scientific debate on climate and sea-level science.”
Hmm. That’s definitely a very dangerous argument. In fact it's very worrying indeed.
Scaddemp, most lukewarmers that I've listened to (including Judith C and Matt Ridley) definitely want to protect the environment, and they propose the expansion of research into new energy systems, but they worry about taking it to an extreme.
But . . . . although the process looks bad, there could be a real problem here. I find it incredibly hard to know. Unfoortunately we all have this thing called confirmation bias, and that makes everything tricky.
Moderator Response:[DB] Sloganeering snipped.
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nigelj at 05:09 AM on 18 December 2019SkS Analogy 21 - Snow on a Hot Tin Roof
The warming arctic is also increasing carbon emissions from the permafrost tundra, so this is another feedback: "Rising emissions are turning arctic permafrost into a carbon source, research shows"
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growide at 03:40 AM on 18 December 2019Climate Science blogs around the world
Carbon emissions and India's efforts
As we know, India comes third in the world, in carbon emissions. China is at number one, America at second. Both of these also come in developed nations, and India comes in the list of underdeveloped countries. But India's efforts also show the sharpest will to overcome this crisis.https://www.growideindia.com/2019/12/climate-change-and-its-impact-on.html
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:01 PM on 17 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
nigelj @17,
Mo worries about the difficulty in being brief ut clear. I appreciate the challenge of being clear while being brief.
My response was more for the benefit of the likes of Wol, who I agree misunderstood the comments that were provided in response to the ones they made.
It is pretty well established that attempts to be clear on an issue will struggle to be understood by people who are determined to resist expanding their awareness and improving their understanding in ways that are contrary to their developed personal interests.
The popularity of harmful limited awareness and misunderstanding is a tragic development, especially when it happens to people in supposedly more advanced nations.
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nigelj at 05:23 AM on 17 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
OPOF @16, fair comments in the main. I was really just annoyed at Wol saying I was promoting that people have "a much lower standard of living". I said no such thing, and I just wanted to make a brief response on that point. I was not really setting out to write a treatise on the lifestyle issue.
My main focus in my comment was the population issue. Only so many hours in the day, etc.
When someone comments on the climate issue in a general way on an international website, it should be assumed they are talking globally unless they indicate otherwise. I was always talking globally. But yes I agree wealth is concentrated in western countries so they can do more to change lifestyles without serious compromises than poor countries would have.
Yes people need to be considering whether they really need large ICE powered cars. In fact if EV's were subsidised people wouldn't even need to compromise their lifestyle significantly.
To me Wols statement of "a much lower standard of living" can only be interpreted to mean fairly serious deprivation in the basics of life. I took him at face value because of what he said. Its absurd to expect anyone to do this. But all of us can make at least some lifestyle changes without it hurting, and often these have benefits. I did actually point that out, so you need to read things in context a bit.
I think its about whats reasonable. It's reasonable to expect people to fly a bit less, buy EV's, drive smaller ICE cars if they cant afford an EV, and buy energy efficient appliances and do home recycling, and things like that. It's not reasonable to expect people to go cold in winter, go without televisions and fridges etcetera and they are unlikely to do so anyway. Its not reasonable to expect working class people even in rich countries to spend a lot of money insulating homes, unless they were to get a government subsidy. And of course subsidies change the picture quite a bit.
Rich people could do more. Nobody needs multiple homes often left empty, and a fleet of cars etc but we have to be careful not to demonise the rich. Most of their wealth is invested and this does feed back into society in useful ways, in some cases anyway. In others not so much.
So getting to the point, I think lifestyle changes are a very significant part of the answer to the climate problem, but there will be realistic limits, so renewable energy is the biggest single priority.
Lying people who want to resist correction. Yes calling people liars and names is unlikely to change their minds or win over sane people in the middle of this debate. Psychology 101. I think we need very solid proof before calling people liars, and that proof is not always easy to get. I prefer to just refer to inaccurate statements or words like that, and be a bit subtle about it while making sure its clear I don't accept what they are saying. I have no problem with your approach.
If we can get the middle ground to shift it will push the intransigent, unhelpful entitled minority groups to shift a bit, or at least marginalise them.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:52 AM on 17 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
nigelj @14,
Thanks for clarifying. Those are indeed very different positions from the way your comment was presented.
I have no major issue with the clarification that "Agreed. I've argued for a global population of 2 billion people myself..." was meant to be about the minimum practical smaller population.
And I agree with the need for 20% of the global population to face significant corrections of how they developed to like to live, with half of that group facing significant losses of perceptions of superiority relative to others.
However, I disagree about what that means for the "average person".
The highest consuming and impacting portion of the total global population is heavily skewed to the supposedly more advanced nations. The top 10% of the global population is 750 million. The top 20% is 1.5 billion. Total population of the G7 is 800 million.
Significantly more than half of the population of the G7 nations and other supposedly more advanced nations are in the top 20% group. There are high consuming and high impacting people in nations outside of the G7, but they are a smaller portion of the population of those nations.
That means that the "average citizen of a supposedly more advanced nation" likely faces a significant change of the way they live, especially those who have not significantly corrected how they live through the past 30 years.
New Zealand is likely a very different situation, but examples of required correction I see in Alberta are "average people" needing to give up driving big vehicles. And many of them need to give up driving big over-powered vehicles as their regular commute. Commuting in a city using a big pick-up truck or SUV or over-powered inefficient sports car has got to become a thing of the past.
Places like Alberta have been built to require people to drive everywhere. And there is a large number of people who drive big trucks as their personal use vehicles. And many are impressed by the speed they can drive (over-powered vehicles), and the size of their vehicle (over-weight), rather than how efficient their transportation is. And there are many who enjoy fossil-fueled recreation (something that definitely needs to be ended).
Selling the idea that those "Average people" do not need to significantly change how they are enjoying their life is misleading marketing. It is lying to get people to support the required corrective action.
And telling such lies can easily, and correctly, be exploited by people who wish to gather popular support for resistance to the required corrections. The political reality that misleading marketing telling lies about climate science can be successful does not justify telling lies about the required corrections. Shooting down the absurd claims like "the required corrections mean everyone has to live in caves" can be done without lying.
Saying that meeting the required corrections to limit impacts to 1.5 C will not require the "average person of the more developed nations" to significantly change how they live is more damaging than pointing out the extreme possible future outcomes of the lack of responsible correction leadership by the G7 and other supposedly more advanced nations. That claim may have been valid 30 years ago. But a lot of over-development in the wrong direction has occurred since then.
We are now tragically in a world where the ease of achieving the required correction has been deliberately ruined by the lying people who want to resist the correction.
Simply calling them liars will not work. I am just using it in this case for brevity. Pointing out that they are deliberately trying to benefit from fighting against expanded awareness and improving understanding and its application to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals is harder for people to claim to be incorrect. They have to understand that they are choosing to be part of that harmful group and believe liars, or change their mind.
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scaddenp at 18:34 PM on 16 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
takamura - the conference aimed to be carbon neutral. See here for details.
At a conference I attended recently (and no, I didnt travel), the conference opened with a picture of where everyone came from, the estimate for carbon emissions, and the methodlogy they used to calculate no. of trees required to offset. They had purchased the trees and given them to a local re-afforestation project. Local delegates were invited to join the voluteers planting them on day x. Good approach.
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takamura_senpai at 18:10 PM on 16 December 2019COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
How many CO2 conference in Madrid produce ? Aprox 100 000 men moved on long distance, millions news in internet, millions newspapers, + staff + police+ many others. How many resources, electricity was spent?And so on and so forth.
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takamura_senpai at 16:32 PM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
1. Population will not rise above 10 billion.
2. USA CO2 emission larger than 4 billion poor men in the World. So, all talks, that problem is in the population - is a racism, nothing else.
3. Problem in human egoism . That why all climat agreements useless.
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nigelj at 16:12 PM on 16 December 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
The UN climate talks are like Nero fiddling while Rome burns, with a bit of rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic thrown in for good measure.
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nigelj at 15:48 PM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
OPOF @13, when I said that its unrealistic to expect people to "massively reduce their standard of living and use of energy and technology" I was thinking of the average global citizen, who would have an income something like the typical working class person in America, and I contend it would be unrealistic to expect them to make huge changes to lifestyles Could have been clearer I guess. The top 10% - 20% globally have room to make much larger changes to their patterns of consumption without significant problems
Global population of 2 billion people was my educated guess at the smallest possible global population that would minimise environmental impacts and resource use, but still have reasonable economies of scale and specialist skills. Looks like it wasn't a bad guess!
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:35 PM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @11,
I generally agree with nigelj's comment in response to your comment. But on some points I disagree, and not just a little bit.I am not as generous as nigelj about people deserving to be able to keep and increase their developed perceptions of comfort, convenience, or status relative to others. What has developed, especially through the past 30 years, is an unsustainable mess of people who have over-developed their ways of living in incorrect and unsustainable ways. The highest per-capita energy users and material consumers have to reduce their rates of consumption regardless of the total population number.
In response to a claim that pointing out the reality that some developed perceptions of success and superiority deserve to be lost is “... emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living.” Re-read my comments, all of them. I said things that are very different from the interpretation you, and the correction resistance promoters, try to create. And that can be seen without me revising what I wrote.
In particular I said “Everybody has the right to behave as harmfully as others get away with.” That does mean that as everyone develops to be as harmful as everyone else there is an equalization. The difference in perceptions of status is reduced. And harmful behaviour has to be limited.
A correct understanding is that there will only be a reduction of perception of standard of living for those people whose ways of living are significantly based on harmful unsustainable activity. And it is absurd to claim that 'only some people' should be allowed to be benefit from behaving in ways that are unsustainable and harmful (except for the poorest in the context that I included in my comments). Everybody has the right to behave just as badly, which will not work out well for anyone, particularly not for the future of humanity.
As for the claim that “most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living.” Thank you for agreeing that even a small total population would be unsustainable if the way that people lived continued to be unsustainable and harmful. That is my point about some standards of living, over-developed in the wrong directions (away from sustainable), needing to be lost. But the rest of your comment implies that that is not what you meant to say. I believe nigelj misinterpreted what you stated, probably because it fits his belief that people living high consumption lifestyles is OK as long as the total population is limited. There is far more to correct about what has developed than the climate impact problem. All of the Sustainable Development Goals need to be achieved and improved on.
Limiting the discussion to climate impacts (only one of the SDGs), for global humanity to be sustainable many of the perceptions of status developed through the decades of fossil fuel use will actually have to be given up, lost. It is happening to coal barons world-wide. And it will happen to many correction resistant oil barons and natural gas barons. It can also happen to everyone else who resists correcting how they live now.
The past 30 years are a good example. For the past 30 years everyone had adequate warning about the need to be smarter about their choices. People who bet on continuing to get away with relatively cheap fossil fuel, and bought a larger or poorly insulated home, or bought a larger less efficient vehicle, deserve to lose some of their current perceived status.
You are correct. People who want to harmfully resisting being educated and corrected are the target audience of the climate science arrogant igore-ance brigade. But there is no future for that way of thinking, no matter how popular or profitable it appears to be.
As for “However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable” I completely disagree. There is adequate capacity for Sustainable living by that total population. The only reason it would not be sustainable is the resistance to helpful correction by the over-consuming and over-impacting (and harmfully opposed to sharing and caring), portion of the population. This is presented in many reports, including the 2016 BBC Earth article by Vivien Cumming “How many people can our planet really support”. It includes the following “A 2012 UN report summarised 65 different estimated maximum sustainable population sizes. The most common estimate was eight billion, a little larger than the current population. But the estimates ranged from as few as two billion to, in one study, a staggering 1,024 billion.” That means niglej's 2 billion is at the bottom edge of the evaluations, and a population of 11 billion is potentially sustainable. But crying "population is the problem" will likely remain popular for a long time among the harmfully correction resistant looking for any excuses they can find.
As for “Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any.” That is because the science is focused on the total impact of the total population. The total acceptable impacts, 1.5 C warming, are in no way affected by a population number. And the reality of the need for correction of development in order for human activity to be sustainable and sustainably improve also does not really depend on the total population, as long is it peaks at about 12 billion and settles down to about 8 billion.
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John Hartz at 13:59 PM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
scaddenp @859: You asked:
Anyone else notice that while climate scientists come in all political colours, climate science deniers seem to be overwhelmingly right wing?
Actually, many are Russian BOTs.
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ERRATA at 12:06 PM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
Why my comment wasn't published?
Moderator Response:[PS]There is no sign of a deleted comment from you in our moderation database. Last comment showing up from you was 12 Dec and it is visible (no 854). If you have posted since then I suspect a technical glitch. Sorry about that. Try again.
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scaddenp at 12:03 PM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
A further comment. I see most "lukewarmers" as too honest as to deny physics, but unable to imagine a policy response that is compatiable with their values/identity, hence work hard to try and deny the need for action. A pity because coming up with an acceptable and effective response is something the right wing badly need. The political debate should be about best policy not science denial.
However, I also acknowledge that there are people who frankly see the threats posed by climate change as an excuse to beat a different political drum and like the hard right, they are more interested in pushing their ideology than science. Most scientists dont appreciate being lumped with them simply because they do exist.
A good question to ask, "if we knew for sure that ECS was 2.0, then would you still be arguing for same policy response as if we knew for sure that ECS was 4.5?" My answer would be no way. Yes, it is still highly desirable to get off FF if no other reason than they are limited and sooner or later will run out anyway, but the urgency of the time frame is different and the scope for damage much less.
Reality is that we dont know ECS with certainty and evidence would have it closer to 3 than 2. Reducing the uncertainty is extremely difficult so the precautionary principle applies.
Anyone else notice that while climate scientists come in all political colours, climate science deniers seem to be overwhelmingly right wing?
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nigelj at 11:39 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @11
"I note the replies. They seem to put the emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living."
I made no reference to adopting a much lower standard of living. In fact I've argued the opposite on this website, namely that expecting people to make large reductions in the use of technology and energy look completely unrealistic to me, so I do agree with you to a point.
The solutions to the climate problem that seem most plausible to me are zero carbon energy and negative emissions technologies, notwithstanding the political challenges. Lifestyle changes will help as a minor wedge measure. There are some things that can be done that would not hugely lower standards of living, like flying less and eating less meat, and both reduce expenditure so have a positive side.
I see population policies helping a bit as well, but you need to be realistic about what can be achieved, and they are also a wedge issue.
"Look at it from the other end: most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living. "
Agreed. I've argued for a global population of 2 billion people myself over at realclimate.org, but this is a long term plan. Business as usual population policies are a fertility rate of 2.2, taking us from 7.6 billion now to 11 billion by 2100, then stability. If we were to get fertility rates down to about 1.5 over the next couple of decades we would hit about 9 billion by 2100 and 2 billion by year 2300. I worked it out with a population calculator, you can google these.
But achieving a fertility rate of 1.5 globally over the next few decades is about as realistic as making "huge lifestyle changes". Ie not very realistic. A few countries in Europe have this number, but it took a lot of policies to get there and a lot of wealth and economic security, and they are already worried it is causing too many elderly people in proportion to young people.
Africa has scope to reduce population growth but I repeat they are not a big source of emissions and what is it you propose to do? We can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink. You can't force them. Their population growth will still fall over a longer time frame anyway, as they become weathier and have better primary healthcare and access to contraceptives as has happened elsewhere. This will help keep temperatures from climbing to ridiculous numbers, but has little bearing on immediate goals and problems.
Even if by some miracle we got global population down faster, it won't change much by 2050, because of the demographics, so clearly won't do much to stop temperatures getting over 2 degrees! At most it will help stop temperatures getting over 4 degrees.
It is important to encourage slower population growth, and for both the climate and other reasons, but I'm just saying the world mostly already is doing this, and you have to be realistic on time frames and what can be achieved. We can talk a whole lot about it, but it distracts from the key issues of zero carbon energy etc and short to medium term Paris Accord goals.
"However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable even without bringing the third world up to Western consumption. That statement has nothing to do with attitudes of superiority or whatever,'
Agree totally.
"Trying to contain emissions without addressing the fundamental issue - numbers - is the equivalent of running up the down escalator. A down escalator which is constantly speeding up, moreover."
The fundamental issue in terms of the climate is not population. It's the type of energy we use.
"My point is that the world is unlikely to accept the restrictions that are being debated at the moment "
The world is just as unlikely to accept radical population policies. We have to just work away at all the issues so zero carbon energy, population, and lifestyle.
"Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any."
True. I suggest there are obvious reasons. The IPCC and other authorities probably don't want yet more distractions from renewable energy goals, and they dont want to be accused of social engineering or blaming Africa for the climate problem etc.
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Wol at 10:23 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
I note the replies.
They seem to put the emphasis on exactly the target that the deniers' aim at - being sustainable means living at a much lower standard of living.
Look at it from the other end: most authorities - and I have no reference here - would probably not argue that a population of a couple of a billion would be long-term sustainable even if all had our own standard of living. (Whether such a number would be workable with capitalism as we know it needing constant growth is another argument.)
However we are at present in the 7 1/2 Bn regime and growing daily - clearly long-term unsustainable even without bringing the third world up to Western consumption. That statement has nothing to do with attitudes of superiority or whatever,
Trying to contain emissions without addressing the fundamental issue - numbers - is the equivalent of running up the down escalator. A down escalator which is constantly speeding up, moreover.
My point is that the world is unlikely to accept the restrictions that are being debated at the moment and even less likely to begin talking about overall numbers - the heart of the sustainability problem.
Look through a thousand random articles and papers on climate change and see how many references you can see to population numbers - hardly any. Plenty about holidaying in Scunthorpe instead of Magaluf, and eating crickets instead of steak yet the fact that twice the number equals twice the emissions (all else being equal) seems unable to be discussed.
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michael sweet at 07:43 AM on 16 December 2019New paper shows that renewables can supply 100% of all energy (not just electricity)
Nigelj,
I thought this was a better thread to discuss renewable energy. At RealClimate it takes several days for posts to be readable and you post both places.
I read your reference on "three weeks of storage". Original paper here (Shaner et al). I recognized at least two of the authors (Davis and Calderia) as constant nuclear proponents.
Although I am not a researcher, I notices several obvious problems with this paper.
1) The paper only looked at the electrical system. Renewable energy researchers showed at least 5 years ago that the bigger the system the less relative storage is needed. Thus electricity only requires the most storage, electricity + transportation requires much less and electricty + transportation+ heat + industry requires the least. All North America requires less storage than the USA only. The finding of Shaner that storage is required for this system is similar to what I recall from old articles.
We cannot compare this result to Jacobson et al 2018 or Connelly 2016 because both those articles look at ALL POWER.
2) Shaner et al use only solar pv and wind in their simulations. Why would anyone care about a system that leaves out existing hydro, geothermal and pumped hydro (originally built to balance nuclear power)?? Obviously, no one will tear down existing resources. The "three weeks of storage" is for a system that has no hydro, geothermal or pumped storage, not for any concievable system built in the USA. This seems like a fatal error to me. Certainly "three weeks" is not relevant. Hydro alone would significantly reduce this storage.
3) The model uses wind speeds at 50 meters for their analysis. It is well known that wind is stronger and more consistant the higher above the ground you get. Jacobson 2018 uses wind speeds at 100 meters. Current 1.5 MW turbines have hub heights at 65 meters. Blades reach to 100 meters. Design specifications for new 5 MW turbines is 88 meters to the hub. The blades reach 64 meters higher (to 152 meters). I am not sure what the best height to use is for future turbines but 50 meters is obviously much too low. This is a fatal error to me.
It seems to me that Shaner et al is designed to find the most expensive renewable energy system. This makes nuclear look better since it is so expensive. The paper suggests using nuclear to reduce system costs in the conclusion.
Most people are interested in finding the cheapest system cost. Shaner et al is not interesting to those who seek the lowest cost.
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scaddenp at 06:46 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
Just a minor point - anyone saying "they cant get their papers published" - in any field, let alone climate science, - ask them to publish their reviewers comments. I will bet that most wont, largely because I think the "papers" are mythical and simply a rhetorical point, but others would be embarrassing. If they are prepared to do so, then sure, you can read the comments and see whether you think the reviewers have a point.
As to sensitivity, someone who thinks ECS is 1 degree is frankly a denier not a skeptic. This requires the existance of unobserved negative feedbacks and really only "exists" in the statistical evaluation of error not in the physics. Against this is the overwhelming evidence of net positive feedback.
You need speculative processes to drive the ice-age cycles with a sensitivity of 2.0 or less. On the other hand, an ECS of 2.5 or higher fits well with known physics, observations and models. That is where the evidence is pointing. Lukewarmers are generally trying frantically to magnify unquantified uncertainties to support a ideologically or identity based positions. Wishful thinking not evidence-based thinking. -
nigelj at 06:19 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
In answer to Wols comments on human population. Certainly population growth has been rapid and is obviously problematic for the planet in multiple ways, but its slowing quite dramatically in many places anyway, particularly Europe and the Americas. The fastest population growth is in Africa but they are not a major source of emissions and are unlikely to be for some considerable time.
There's probably not much more that can be done to slow population growth rates more dramatically. Europe would end up with too many dependant elderly people. Africa are slow to do anything.
Even if we could slow growth more quickly, it wouldn't be in enough time to have huge implications for the Paris Accord targets of 2 degrees. Zero population growth will however help the climate problem longer term so its important countries do whatever they can to slow growth. Refer to "projections of population growth" on wikipedia and think it through.
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MA Rodger at 03:14 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
PatrickSS @856,
You say that there is "an argument between the people who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C ... and those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C ..." Do you consider the folk saying that Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (from 2 x CO2) is about +1.0ºC to be more than just a few contrarians and that their supporting evidence is well-founded? And if you do consider them to be thus, providing a serious scientific position, perhaps you should name their leading members so their position within the 'consensus' can be properly adjudged along with showing how numerous they are and how well-founded their arguments.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:03 AM on 16 December 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Paul Krugman's Dec 12th NYT Op-Ed "The Party That Ruined the Planet", provides an expansion of awareness and understanding related to the push for Carbon Loopholes (and many other nasty aspects of developed reality).
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:29 AM on 16 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @7,
The population problem can be better understood as increased individual behaviour that is not governed by the pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to achieve necessary goals like all of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Everybody's actions add up
- Everybody has the right to behave as harmfully as others get away with.
- That spiral of increasing harm is a dead-end
- Competition for popularity and profit with people freer to believe whatever they want to excuse behaving in ways that are understandably potentially, or actually understandably, harmful to Others, especially to the future of humanity, will not achieve a sustainable and improving future for humanity.
- To deserve perceptions of superiority relative to Others a person would need to be self-governing and self-limiting their actions to expand awareness and improve understanding and apply the learning to achieve and improve the goals necessary for the future of humanity which include all of the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Anyone of perceived higher status who is not self-governing and self-limiting of their actions to expand awareness and improve understanding and is not applying that learning to achieve and improve the goals necessary for the future of humanity needs to be taken down a few Status Notches until thy change their mind.
- Only the neediest have an excuse to behave more poorly, more harmfully to the future of humanity. And the the more fortunate, least 'needful', would prove being worthy of higher status by being more helpful to sustainably improving living conditions for the poorest, helping them develop toward the higher status of responsible considerate helpful self-governing.
Even a very small global population that fails to develop that type of Governing of behaviour can be understood to have no future. And that understanding can be extended to apply to any subset of a total global population. Even businesses that do not achieve that type of Governing of their behaviour will not have a future.
Any pursuits contrary to achieving and improving on the Sustainable Development Goals Do Not Have a Future. And it is harmful for anyone to try to defend developed perceptions of Status that would be reduced by the achievement of the SDGs.
The problem is the way that temporary perceptions of winning higher status can be gotten away with by people who wish to personally benefit by defying that understanding. Misleading marketing has been proven to lead many less fortunate people to support competitors for status who do not actually want to help the people of lower status they want to get support from.
The observable reality is that many of the supposedly more advanced nations actually cause people to become harmfully defiant of expanded awareness and improved understanding because they do not want to be governed or limited by the need to help achieve the goals necessary for the future of humanity to be sustainable and improvable.
Sustainable corrections have to be the governing priority. Any perceptions of superiority, or improvement of conditions for the poorest, that are developed unsustainably, without serious pursuit of the required sustainable corrections, are tragically popular and profitable dead-end misunderstandings.
The Real Population Problem is the temporary regional or tribal success of misleading marketing in defiant resistance to the corrections of attitudes and actions required by improving awareness and understanding in pursuit of a sustainable improving future for humanity.
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PatrickSS at 02:20 AM on 16 December 2019There is no consensus
Hi All. I think it's essential that we all think for ourselves on this topic. I wanted to do that, and I started recently by looking at the scientific consensus.
I now have lots of problems with the information on this page, which I think is misleading in several different ways. From what I can see, this is an argument between the people who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C (which they think will not be a major problem) and those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C (which, they think, would be a major problem). So it is very misleading to say, above, that "97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming", because both sides agree on that.
Secondly I have a lot of problems with the way that the consensus is reported both here and in eg Wikipedia. I decided to look at the data. I looked at what seemed to be the most recent paper on this, by Bart Verheggen and colleagues, called Scientists’ view about attribution of global warming.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es501998e
In the light of my first point above, the only question that you really want to hear about is their Q12, "How concerned are you about climate change as a long-term global problem?". What is quite extraordinary is that Bart and colleagues don't mention this question, or the responses to it, in the whole of their article. How could that happen?
Fortunately they have published a summary of the responses:
https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/climate-science-survey-questions-and-responses
Now we discover that only 33% of climate scientists are more than "somewhat concerned", and 8.5% are "not very concerned" or "not concerned at all".
That doesn't really look like a consensus.
The main argument in the abstract of Bart's paper is that the authors who publish a lot on climate science are more likely to agree that anthropogenic gasses are the dominant driver of recent climate change. John Cook's graph, above, makes a similar point. Given that scientists, such as Judith Curry, who take a "contrarian" view of climate change complain that they can't get their work published, this doesn't see like a very good argument.
With the best will in the world, none of this looks good for the consensus.
Would it be possible to change the information on this page to encourage people to look at the original data in Bart's report? And also to highlight areas of agreement - such as that most contrarians are "lukewarmers" who agree that human activities cause some warming? That way lay-people such as myself would be in a much better position to think about this for ourselves.
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michael sweet at 22:59 PM on 15 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Nigelj,
The claims by Engineer Poet and David Benson at RealClimate that renewable energy requires immense storage are simply false. If you wish to repeat those false claims here you need to provide a citation. Currently you are repeating nuclear propaganda.
If you read the cited by references at GOOGLE for recent renewable energy papers you will find lists of interesting and relevant papers. For example:
papers that cite Smart Energy Europe (268 cites since 2016) paper
papers that cite Energy Storage and Smart Energy Systems (115 citations)(the original paper can be accessed free as a PDF from the paper list for Smart Energy Europe linked above)
Jacobson et al 2018 citing papers cited by 52 since 8/19, lists all required materials for a completely renewable system without using any combustion energy sources. Jacobson uses no new pumped storage, it is too expensive. Why is pumped storage the only option for Engineer Poet?
This paper addresses many false claims that nuclear supporters make about renewable energy: Response to Burden of Proof. You are wasting your time talking to Benson and Engineer Poet. Think: why do these guys only post on unmoderated sites? They could post here at SkS but they know that they do not have references for their wild claims.
Nuclear supporters making wild, unsupported claims only cause people to doubt that renewable energy can provide All Power and support the fossil fuel industry. Nuclear is a failed technology and has no option besides bad talking successful Renewable Energy.
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michael sweet at 22:27 PM on 15 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
John ONeill,
According to this report, beryllium is used in the construction of the fuel bundles in CANDU power reactors. GOOGLING beryllium uses finds many references to the use of beryllium or its alloys in nuclear reactors eg Royal Society of Chemistry, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Geology.com.
Please provide citations to support your claim that beryllium is not used in nuclear reactors, your personal opinion does not seem very accurate.
It occurs to me that you may be copying material from a web site that supports nuclear. Can you provide a link to that source so I can see what they are claiming?
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:42 PM on 15 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Wol @7,
Global total population is a concern. But the problem is the total impacts of the total population.
So by all means mention the population problem, but always admit the real population problem, the total impact.
And that means admitting that the portion of the population that is the problem is the highest per-capita consuming and impacting portion.
Without admitting the true nature of the problem, any perceived solution is likely unsustainable and probably unjustifiably harmful. Not admitting the reality of the problem is misleading marketing excusing of the harmful unsustainable Status Quo.
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scaddenp at 11:41 AM on 15 December 2019Measuring Earth's energy imbalance
Richieb - you could try this one. Trenberth and Fusillo 2014. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00294.1
And same authors 2016
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0339.1
The Argo system is helping constrain the energy imbalance.
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Wol at 11:35 AM on 15 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
nigelj:>>For gods sake, we have a population heading to ten billion people!<<
And there you have it in a nutshell!
The taboo against even mentioning overpopulation is so strong that even in the myriad of articles, TV programmes, radio talks, forums such as this, it's almost never mentioned.
Yet it's undeniable, surely, that humanity, with its technology over the past couple of hundred years, has enabled for the first time to (temporarily) transcend the Malthusian barrier and populate way past the planet's capacity. 10 Bn? Arguably the sustainable limit was passed half a century ago.
Releasing millions of years' worth of carbon into the atmosphere in one great orgasm of industrialisation isn't going to stop without massive state coercion and frankly that's not going to happen until past several tipping points.
Meanwhile the number of mouths increases at something over three per second.......... and no-one talks about it!
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michael sweet at 05:48 AM on 15 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
John ONeill,
According to Metalpedia, approximately 1.5 million tons of zirconium was mined in 2013. World reserves were estimated at 60 million tons (from the US Geological Survey. Your reference does not have a reserve number, it seems you made it up) so if current usage continued they would last about 40 years, less than the claimed lifetime of a nuclear reactor. Adding on the nuclear use you claim would substantially reduce the life of the reserve. Your estimate of lifetime of reserves appears to be approximately 200 times too long.
It appears to me that your reference only counts the usage of zirconium metal and not zirconium alloys and compounds. Obviously we need to count all uses of an element. Livescience's article on uses of zirconium does not even mention nuclear. This article from MIT lists 5 metals as rare including zirconium. Apparently zirconium is a byproduct of titanium mines and not directly mined. Prices are unstable due to shortages.
This example clearly demonstrates the futility of using GOOGLE to argue scientific points made in peer reviewed articles. The first hit that sems to fit your preconcieved notions is not necessarily accurate. Since Abbott is a peer reviewed source you need to provide peer reviewed data to argue with it.
It is a waste of time to exchange GOOGLE hits, neither of us is expert on amounts of rare metals. Provide appropriate references to your claims.
In any case, you are claiming nuclear can supply all world power. If we build out the 15 terrawatts of power needed, the known reserves of uranium would run out in only 5 years (according to Abbott 2011).
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Alan Russell at 23:09 PM on 14 December 2019Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Another thing that's important to note is the short life of methane in the atmosphere which tends to be misrepresented when GWP100 is used to represent its effects. If cattle herd sizes remain the same over the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere, they will maintain the same amount of additional methane in the atmosphere year on year (the amount of cattle in Europe and North America is lower than it was in the 1960's whilst India has fewer cattle than it did in the 1980s). In terms of their contribution to warming, this, in a very simplistic sense, is equivalent to a closed power station.
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takamura_senpai at 22:06 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
sorry for english
1. We need 1000 000 000 000 trees to ...... delay global warming on some years. What about realism?
2. We had several climat international agreements befor Paris, all positive result = ZERO. The same will be with Paris. For many reasons. (For example: how many % of authors here use a car? ...... And what we want from ........ ? ........)
3. Humans are absolutely egoistic. All this meetings, agreements useless. Even more. It looks like....some people spent many thousands tonnes of paper on appeals to save forests..... Did anybody calculate, how many CO2 was produced by ALL this climat fuss/rush? I think millions of tonnes.
4. Most and extraordinary efforts MUST be on solar, wind electricity and storage. We must spend hundreds of billions dollars every year on scientific developments. Now it looks like... this is the only real possibility/opportunity/chance to solve a problem.
5. Idea of "carbon markets" and "carbon credits" and ... is excellent. But reality..... enough USA China India Africa.
6. We have to speak NOT about sea level, but about forest fires, droughts, health, economic....locusts.... Forest fires produce smoke, enough to destroy health, even kill millions. -
richieb1234 at 19:10 PM on 14 December 2019Measuring Earth's energy imbalance
John Cook
Mesuring Earth's energy imbalance, 20 September 2009
This paper on Earth's energy balance is very interesting from a physicist's perspective. The paper and summary are from 2009, and the most recent comment is from 2015. Is there an up-to-date version of the Murphy et al paper?
Thanks in advance
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nigelj at 16:11 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
bozzza, sequestering carbon with trees is sure not as simple as it seems. There is however an interesting proposal to sequester carbon by growing trees in the Sahara desert and other deserts, using irrigation and desalinisation and nuclear power. It could obvious also be solar power. But given the increasing demands for timber, its hard for me to see enough discipline being found to make these the truly long growing forests needed to sequester carbon properly.
Cities don't need nuclear power as such. A 100% renewable power grid is possible, but the storage costs are horrendous right now and may not ever drop enough to be really good. But an 80% renewables grid plus some storage plus something like nuclear power or geothermal power is economically feasible and zero carbon. Some backgroundhere.
I don't know if Trumps believes his own words on climate change or not. Don't care, he will be gone next election or 4 years after that.
Free markets won't solve climate change. After 30 years free markets have achieved virtually nothing to fix the problem. The only significant progress has come from market interventions like wind power subsidies, government energy efficieny rules, cap and trade schemes ( notwithstanding their failings as mentioned) and carbon taxes, etc. History is not on Reagons side.
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John ONeill at 15:47 PM on 14 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
'Boiling water reactors with a full core of fuel rods will contain about 44 tonnes of zirconium.Pressurised water reactors will contain about 29.5 tonnes of zirconium...zirconium is the 20th most abundant element in the earth’s crust...There are good reserves of zircon sand in many countries including South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Australia, Ukraine, Peru, India, China and the United States.' World reserves are over a billion tons, and non-nuclear uses are about 15 percent.
https://www.reuters.com/article/zirconium-nuclear/factbox-nuclear-industry-and-zirconium-idUSLN78747920090423
With about forty tons per reactor every four years, and about 450 reactors making 4% of the world's energy, multiply by 25 to cover total world energy use, and the industry has about eight thousand years before it is forced to consider recycling, or using alternatives. ( Silicon carbide is considered a good option, but I'm not going to calculate when we'd run out of silicon and carbon.) As shown above, hafnium supply is included with zirconium - in fact, other users of hafnium rely on the nuclear industry for the difficult separation process, and would have much greater costs without it. Alternative materials for control rods include boron. 'Global proven boron mineral mining reserves exceed one billion metric tonnes, against a yearly production of about four million tonnes.' Rare earth elements such as europium are also used. They're not actually that rare, but they are difficult to separate from each other ( like zirconium and hafnium ), and they're often present in thorium ores. Thorium is classed as radioactive, which it is slightly, and therefore is difficult to get mining permits for. If it is eventually used as fuel - it's about five hundred times more abundant than uranium 235, with about the same energy content of 19,000 kwh per gram - more rare earths would be available as a by-product.
Zirconium is actually produced in reactors - it makes up about ten percent of fission products - but not in quantities worth processing. Other, much rarer, elements are also present, though. India is already looking at palladium, rhodium and ruthenium recovery. Some of these metals, which are very useful catalysts and alloying agents, are worth thousands of dollars a kilo. Reserves of rhodium in spent fuel will soon be greater than in ores, and some of those ores are in conflict zones in Zaire, where they are exploited by child labour to finance civil war. 'After 5 years cooling the specific activity of Rh obtained from nuclear fuels is less than a millicurie a gram, and after a few decades, irrelevant.' Technetium is an unstable element not found in nature, but its radioactivity is low - the half life is over 200,000 years, with emission of a low energy beta particle, an electron. Technetium is chemically almost identical to rhenium, which is essential for high-temperature alloys in turbine blades and the like, but Tc is about half as heavy.
Beryllium is not used in any current reactor, or in any presently being assessed for licensing in the USA or Canada, including proposed molten salt designs.
Abbot sees all sorts of problems in expanding an industry which already makes ten percent of the world's electricity - over fifty percent in some countries - but none of significance in moving from fossil fuels (85% of our energy) to his preferred option, concentrating solar ( about 0.01% ). The technology for CSP has been around for as long as nuclear, but the people who actually install power systems have ignored it.
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Mal Adapted at 14:29 PM on 14 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2019
nigelj @14:
Yeah maybe the intent in the name sceptical science was to fishook in a few climate sceptics. No big deal. Clever move.
That's part of the rationale for the name, and it has worked well for the purpose. OTOH, science is a centuries-long, worldwide collective enterprise by trained, disciplined, competitively skeptical individuals, who adopt Nullius in verba as a guiding principle. As nigelj well knows, soi disant "skeptics" of anthropogenic global warming are actually pseudo-skeptical, and are appropriately called AGW-deniers. For the most part, volunteer AGW-deniers are neither trained nor disciplined, and readily succumb to the Dunning-Kruger effect. They scorn the lopsided consensus of genuine experts, namely the international peer community of climate specialists; but gladly take the word of professional disinformers who obfuscate reality for hire, with or without scientific credentials. It's no surprise that a robust public deception industry has flourished, under savvy long-time reinvestment of a tiny fraction of annual fossil fuel profits. The persistent failure of the US to enact effective decarbonization policy is a positive ROI.
Many non-Americans find both our long history of truculent anti-intellectualism, and the vast power of fossil-carbon wealth over our politics, hard to fathom. Alas, they are realities confronting the world 8^(. FWIW, I apologize for my country, and I cling to hope we can somehow blunder our way to a carbon-neutral economy before it's too late for any economy at all!
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bozzza at 13:48 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
I love Trump aswell, btw- if you couldn't tell already, lol- but he is a liar about climate change. He knows perfectly well it's on like donkey kong as all the government agencies put it and if you're in the loop you know that is what they say.
His modus op. is that he doesn't have to be the guy.... FULL STOP MATE! He's pushing market forces and in the final event it IS what Reagan said!
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bozzza at 13:45 PM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
NijelJ, well said: planting trees is snoopy-loopy-land... he'll probably right a song about it and make money, lol,... it's that pathetic!
It's well acknowledged the big metropolises of the world need nuclear power to survive... none of this is news to anybody....
When the policy change thing looks to ripen things will get nasty and the boris johnson thing has pissed a lot of people off but I love boris... the trump 2020 election is coming and it's all a soft core burn really: the world will meet these challenges via the pathetic carping of necessary things we all knew twenty years ago. We have the know-how; all we need is the can-do attitude.
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michael sweet at 05:21 AM on 14 December 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
Ritchieb,
Strong hurricanes are not very common events. The USA is only about 3% of world surface area. You expect a lot of year to year variation in rare occurances measured over a small area. That includes periods of lower activity. The global trend is more very strong hurricanes (along with more weak hurricanes and less moderate hurricanes).
From your reference:
"The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has been extremely active both in terms of the strength of the tropical cyclones that have developed and the amount of storm activity that has occurred near the United States. This is even more notable as it comes at the end of an extended period of below normal U.S. hurricane activity, as no major (category 3 or higher) hurricanes made landfall from 2006 through 2016."
If the deniers are claiming that there are less strong hurricanes hitting the USA because of AGW (or whatever reason they propose) they have to also note the large damages in the past three years. I note that Hurricane Sandy was not a major hurricane when it hit New York and occured during the "Hurricane drought", along with other very damaging storms. I doubt that New Yorkers consider 2012 a "major hurricane free" year. In addition, hurricane forward speed has decreased worldwide causing much greater flooding (like Harvy, Barry and TS Imelda). That appears to be AGW linked.
Scientifically it is interesting to seek explainations for unusual events. Random chance is the best explaination for this issue.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:14 AM on 14 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
Building on nigelj's thoughts, which are relevant and accurate considerations of what is happening regarding Section 6.
Powerful people who try to unjustifiably benefit in harmful unsustainable ways will focus their efforts on the development of a few specific aspects of the rules skewed in their favour, worded the way they want.
If they fail to get the rule wording to be what they want, they shift their efforts to weakening the enforcement of the rules (like Trump just caused the end of the WTO court).
The unjustified wealthy and powerful who want to benefit more from delaying or diminishing the global efforts to rapidly end harmful, and ultimately unsustainable, fossil fuel use are likely very focused on crippling COP efforts to achieve that undeniably required objective for the future of humanity to be sustainable and improvable.
Examples of the unhelpful rules desired by people like those who want to benefit more from Alberta Oil Sands are:
- Making the reduction of emissions intensity a 'carbon credit that counts towards a nation's GHG reduction actions'. In that scam the total emissions of a developed nation can go up as long as they are a smaller ratio of GDP or there is a reduction per unit of Oil Sands produced.
- Allow existing forested areas to count as carbon credits against emissions. That scam allows fossil fuel emissions to continue as long as there are no changes to the amount of forests.
- A new one from the Canadian fossil fuel profiteers is getting carbon credits for increasing the export of natural gas. The claim is that it is better for people to burn natural gas than coal or oil so Canada should get the differential between coal or oil and natural gas for every unit of natural gas exported from Canada. It takes a very "Free Market Economic Mind" to come up with a claim and scam like that one.
The simple basis for anything in Section 6 has to be 'Certainty' that actions based on Section 6 effectively rapidly reduce the existing global rate of increase of ghg's. Economists are very slippery regarding proving that the system they support will actually do what they claim it will do. Their biggest fault is failing to accurately account for powerful wealthy people being willing to benefit from a harmful unsustainable activity, and being able to regionally temporarily harmfully powerfully resist being monitored and corrected.
Science will never be certain. But the need to rapidly end fossil fuel use has been a certainty for decades. And economic rules can be set up to be 'very close to certain' regarding the result. An extreme example would be rigorous global monitoring and swift severe penalties imposed regardless of claims of national sovereignty or personal freedom to believe and do as one wishes.
The main reason economic rules are not set up that way is the powerful resistance to correction of the powerful incorrect Status Quo winners (and the unjustified popularity of claims about Freedom to defend unjustified harmful actions).
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Daniel Bailey at 01:11 AM on 14 December 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
"a statistically significant downward trend since 1950, with the percentage of total Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) expended over the continental U.S. at a series minimum during the recent drought period."
Current global ACE is 103% of normal.
Whats Up With That???
https://policlimate.com/tropical/
Denier blogs lie. Do not trust them.
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richieb1234 at 21:28 PM on 13 December 2019Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
GPWayne
Thank you for the rebuttal regarding frequency of tropical storms. Could you please comment on this 2017 article [Truchelut, R.E. and Staehling, E.M. 2017. An energetic perspective on United States tropical cyclone landfall droughts. Geophysical Research Letters 44: 12,013-12,019.] which is cited by climate skeptic websites? It claims there was a drought of energetic hurricanes; i.e. hurricanes above a Cyclone Energy of 100 kt, from 2006 to 2015. It also claims "a statistically significant downward trend since 1950, with the percentage of total Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) expended over the continental U.S. at a series minimum during the recent drought period." On the face of it, ACE sounds like a good measure of hurricane activity.
Thanks in advance for your response
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Joris Geelen at 19:08 PM on 13 December 2019Glaciers are growing
New data on glaciers:
Global glacier mass changes and their contributions to sea-level rise from 1961 to 2016
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1071-0
"Present mass-loss rates indicate that glaciers could almost disappear in some mountain ranges in this century" -
Philippe Chantreau at 15:35 PM on 13 December 2019It's magnetic poles
Coal contains innumerable fossilized plant remains, such as this fern:
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-fossil-fern-in-coal-shale-27765040.html
There is no question that all forms of coal are essentially fossilized plant material.
Hydrocarbons are chemical mixes of carbon and hydrogen.
Oil comes from fossilized algae, diatoms and zooplancton. Fossil fuels are named that for good reason. Brp 7312 nitpicking has no value.
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