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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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prove we are smart at 06:56 AM on 19 September 2019

Skeptical Science to join the Global Climate Strike on September 20!

Yep, just finished my placard. I regretted missing our huge local anti csg/fracking rally a few years ago. Finally old enough now to say what i feel and not care if others disagree! WAKEUP Australia....

citizenschallenge at 00:46 AM on 19 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

Beyond that, everytime I hear such bs diversions I have to wonder:

What does anyone's "hypocracy" (or lack thereof) have to do with the physical reality of manmade global warming and its impact on our weather system and biosphere?

Rob1977 at 15:12 PM on 18 September 2019

Skeptical Science to join the Global Climate Strike on September 20!

I'll be attending in Perth - hope to see you all there :)

DPiepgrass at 12:54 PM on 18 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

I like to remind them what "hypocrite" means. It means not practicing what you preach, and I don't know anybody who is saying you should never use an airplane. We need to reach zero net emissions, but this doesn't mean we can't still have jet fuel. We do need carbon taxes and we need to eventually replace fossil fuel with a combination of biofuels and batteries... so pretty much the only way you could be a hypocrite on this would be to vote for politicians who oppose carbon taxes, oppose biofuels or oppose batteries.

scaddenp at 12:52 PM on 18 September 2019

Wind energy is a key climate change solution

Falseprogress appears to object to renewables primarily on aesthetics grounds. (And obviously either prefers the look of coalmines or lives a long way from them). Should we be continuing to create climate problems with fossil fuel because we dont like the aesthetic of solutions? Personally, I would rather not have windmills and hydro and frankly like many (most?) with environmental concerns, limit my energy use accordingly. However, society's energy-hunger is unabated, so wind and solar are next best option. It is hard enough to get people to pay any more for energy as it is, let alone pay the cost of nuclear. Continuing to burn fossil fuel is not an alternative option. When you can convince society to drastically reduce energy consumption (and population) or pay a lot more for it, then there is a way to get rid of windmills.

One Planet Only Forever at 12:34 PM on 18 September 2019

Wind energy is a key climate change solution

FalseProgress@22,

I agree with the need for "scaling down society", but I disagree with the scaling down being restricted to population.

Achieving and improving on the robustly established Sustainable Development Goals is, realistically, the only viable future for humanity.

There are a diversity of new developments and ways to correct what has incorrectly developed popularity and profitability. But the total impact of the total population is what needs to be corrected to achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals.

The current situation is indeed unsustainable. Limiting the population can be part of the solution, but limiting the impacts of the way people live, how much they consume and how much waste and pollution their actions cause, is the more important focus. Associated with limiting the impacts of the largest consuming and largest impacting people, there is a need to ensure that all of the people actually live at least a basic decent life. Note that Ethically/Morally, competitions for status (wealth, power and image) where everyone is said to have the chance to live at least a basic decent life but many people will suffer through a less than basic decent life is ethically unacceptable.

Current day people living in ways that cannot be developed up to by all others if they wished to, and especially living in ways that simply cannot be continued to be enjoyed by future humans (fossil fuel use is non-renewable), is unacceptable no matter how small the total population is.

FalseProgress at 10:00 AM on 18 September 2019

Wind energy is a key climate change solution

Attn. Moderator(s):

This will be my last post on this page, but I'd like to ask why you allow images like the first one below, which claim to compare wind farm blight to long-standing blight from mining but only show the latter. The problem under discussion is NEW damage from the world's 355,000+ wind turbines - and growing. One assumes that goes without saying for people trying to understand objections to newer eyesores. This site is supposed to be about education, right?

The image titled "Oh yuck..." (single distant wind turbine) looks like the work of a schoolkid who barely understands the scale of Big Wind. The McDonald's photo (not from this forum) is a blatant attempt to manipulate perspective, and the oil field photo (also found elsewhere) shows not a single wind turbine. If it was honest it would at least show all the diesel trucks that haul them and mine their materials. Intrusions from wind turbines are now visible at far greater distances than mines, and the impact is cumulative, not subtractive. You also have to add rare earth mining scars thousands of miles from actual wind projects.

Below is another form of propaganda that misrepresents wind turbines' scale and context. You don't get this sunny, pastoral aura when collosal machines loom over scenery.

Here's what they really look like, with some solar sprawl mixed in (I'm fine with rooftop solar). Everyone who understands the scale of wind projects should be frank about their moral angle. This is what the Green New Deal wants to greatly expand.

Moderator Response:

[PS] Oversized images, rhetoric.

FalseProgress at 08:55 AM on 18 September 2019

Wind energy is a key climate change solution

Rob Honeycutt at 14:31 PM on 29 July, 2019 "False Progress... Clearly, from your website, it seems you strongly object to the look of wind turbines, but what's your alternative? Personally, it seems to me wind turbines are infinitely more preferable to things like mountain top removal to get at coal seams."

You can't equate scalping and stabbing the top of a long ridge to a newer form of mountaintop removal? Is there some criteria that says a certain amount of rock must be removed? And repeating that countless times still won't be ruining mountains? I'm a veteran of this bleak debate and constantly see moderators who accept almost no criticism of the tallest urban sprawl ever invented. If you tell them they're lying they'll ban you for "ad-homimen" attacks and line-out anything with a source that isn't half-written by the wind industry (eerily similar to working for Trump's EPA and mentioning climate change).

Right-wingers have long called environmentalism a "religion" (never agreed with that) but I think Big Wind is now proving that claim in a specific context. As notable "sustainability" critic Paul Kingsnorth put it, you're "destroying the planet to save the planet." It's beyond my capability to understand why HUGE machines all over landscapes are now considered acceptable. These aren't just any machines, they're visible for dozens of miles, day and night. If you were going to care, you already would. I get it.

As for my alternative, it's a tough sell because it involves scaling down society to a smaller population that might be sustained with nuclear, solar and small wind turbines, but might last only as long as fossil fuels remain to build infrastructure and many other things we take for granted.

The assumption that global economic growth aka bloat MUST be made sustainable is the concept most people won't get past. If you re-frame the question to "Is it MORALLY right to keep destroying nature in new ways?" you get a whole different context. I've found that context impossible to achieve in any pro wind power forum, and have concluded that Big Wind engineers see nature no differently than Big Oil, Gas and Coal. It's just new branding with most of the old elements intact. Same truck drivers, same road-builders, same loggers, same crane-riggers, just less obvious smoke and water contamination.

Sierra Nevada and Japanese mountain ridges desecrated.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Inflammatory rhetoric and tone are unhelpful in an evidence-based discussion. Please construct comments to advance the discussion, not hinder it.

Please keep image widths at 450 or less.

nigelj at 08:41 AM on 18 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

shoyemore @4

"A favourite is to accuse anyone concerned about climate of being a hypocrite if they take a trip in an airplane."

Yes I see this repeatedly, although its quite an old one in my experience. The obvious rebuttal is to point out that currently some people really do need to meet face to face and flying is the only realistic option, and that some airlines offer the opportunity to buy carbon offsets.

Such accusations of hypocrisy aren't logical and the denialists know it, but use them because they play to our instincts about right and wrong and inflame our emotions. People need to realise they are being gamed by the denialists. I'm sure most do realise this.

As to the huge lists if lies published about Trump by JH and the media (Washington Post I think) these are well documented and beyond debate I would have thought, but don't seem to deter his "base" which says much about his base, but I suspect the lists of lies will wear down Trumps credibility with middle ground people. He's not polling well in critical states.

Jim Hunt at 08:18 AM on 18 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

Shoyemore@4 - I am inclined to agree with your analysis. Here is the first overview paper we'll be referencing in our forthcoming in depth investigation of "Trump as Trollbot":

https://www.salon.com/2019/09/17/donald-trump-king-of-chaos-new-research-on-right-wing-psychology-points-toward-big-trouble-ahead/

Donald Trump is the King of Chaos. He has lied at least 12,000 times since becoming president of the United States.

These lies are often obvious and lazy — such as incorrectly claiming that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama and then forcing scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to parrot his lies. Trump’s lies are made no less dangerous when they happen to be lazy and obvious.

FalseProgress at 08:05 AM on 18 September 2019

Wind energy is a key climate change solution

The wind power issue has taught me that purist environmentalists (protecting nature intrinsically) are far rarer than I assumed (maybe 5% vs. 15% as a guess). Today's environmentalism seeks to sustain modern life with sprawling forms of non-dense energy, and nature's physical grandeur is the big sacrifice. There's also a refusal to admit that energy gains and CO2-reduction are very weak in terms of vast acreage needed to create them. I call it Blight for Naught.

Today's "environmentalists" have decided (for everyone else) that scenery no longer matters. They have to know it's being destroyed, but post deceptive photos ("Oh yuck, look......a wind turbine" - never a whole ridge ruined by them) as they claim to illustrate new vs. old scars. They also won't admit that wind turbines only add to visible damage, formerly the domain of fossil fuel extraction, mining, logging, etc. (plenty of logging is done for mountaintop wind). Nothing is being improved in terms of natural aesthetics. We just see more machines, less nature, and corporate lingo like "installed capacity" to describe ruined scenery.

Here's a far more accurate view of wind energy sprawl: mountaintop desecration, ocean views lost, roads & construction

The total human footprint has grown enormously since the late 1990s when Big Wind took off. There are now over 355,000 wind turbines on the planet, and Mark Jacobson & Co. would like to see over 10 times that many, which radically increases today's "acceptable" bird & bat carnage.

The topic of dying bats is dodged several times in these comments, and the species of birds killed by wind turbines isn't the same as what cats take out, but we're told it can never matter because we've got to coddle this thing called "civilization" at any cost. Big Wind supporters have merely sold out to a new industry and gravy train. That's all I ask them to admit at this point.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Sloganeering and inflammatory rhetoric snipped.

shoyemore at 07:48 AM on 18 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

I noticed this a few months ago - climate change deniers, having been thoroughly trounced in sophisticated scienyific arguments, have moved to simply spreading chaos. A favourite is to accuse anyone concerned about climate of being a hypocrite if they take a trip in an airplane.

This looks like a fairly unintelligent approach, but is actually quite menacing, and is a sophisticated strategy, even if the "arguments" are stupid. It needs a sophisticated counter-strategy. Climate change deniers never had a commitment to the truth.

nigelj at 06:17 AM on 18 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

Such is the nature of the internet that one well funded organisation could saturate the internet with climate disinformation. While twitter try to plug leaks to stop this (and they should) other leaks are found and other websites exist. The internet is the greatest propaganda tool in human history, and could be doing humanity more harm than good! Close it down I say....

Jim Hunt at 06:09 AM on 18 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

In a strange coincidence over recent days I have been following the exponential growth across a variety of media of a meme alleging that:

A ship carrying passengers who included a group of ‘Climate Change Warriors’ who are concerned about melting Arctic ice got stuck in the ice halfway between Norway and the North Pole.

You can read all about it here:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2019/09/ship-of-fools-iii-escapes-arctic-sea-ice/

Needless to say the "story" is a most egregious example of the current outbreak of "fake news" described above.

One of the alleged trollbots even had the audacity to claim to be the 45th President of the United States of America!

Moderator Response:

[DB] Please limit image widths to 450 or less.

John Mason at 05:48 AM on 18 September 2019

Rebellious Times

Hi Tina,

If you contact us (link at the bottom of every page, RHS) giving your email address, I'll be sure to get back to you. BW - John

Tina at 02:30 AM on 18 September 2019

Rebellious Times

Hello John, I am a member of XR Brecon group and want to contact you personally regarding the possibility of doing a talk to our community. Do you have an email address, please?

Thanks. Tina

Kuidaskassikaeb at 00:55 AM on 18 September 2019

'Trollbots' Swarm Twitter with Attacks on Climate Science Ahead of UN Summit

First they ignore you

Then they laugh at you

Then they fight you

Then they send the troll bots

Then maybe you win

prove we are smart at 13:18 PM on 17 September 2019

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #37

Yes, i missed the anti csg rally, but this march is well needed. Just need to sort out my placard.. Never started a topic but want to know if this carbon capture process is a useful way to use on a big scale? https://youtu.be/Fdh_j_KOmrY

Bob Loblaw at 10:33 AM on 17 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

PringlesX:

You ask, "Do you have some good sources that made you convinced about the large effect?"

I am reminded of a time, many years ago when we had some construction workers at a research site I worked at, who were quite intrigued by all the instrumentation and such. One asked "what did you do to get a job like this?" I answered, "I have a PhD in Physical Geography". I think that was more preparation and work than he had hoped for.

[My speciality was Climatology.]

There is no one source that "convinced" me. There is a huge body of science behind our understanding of climate, dating back to the 1800s. If you are curous about the history, I suggest reading "The Discovery of Global Warming".

I first started learning about climate as an undergrad in the 1970s, mostly via textbooks. In the 1980s, as a grad student, I was introduced to much of the primary literature (as it was at the time). As such, much of my understanding comes from the primary literature, not web pages or books. Here at SkS, I have on several occasions referenced the following paper:

Manabe and Wetherald (1967) Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere With a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity

The link to the journal is here, and a free copy is also available here. The paper describes a one-dimensional climate model that includes exactly the kind of calculations I have been discussing with you. The fact that this is from 1967 should tell you that people have been working on this for a long time.

Of course, our understanding has improved since then. People often refer to the IPCC reports, which attempt to give a summary of current understanding. For a simpler version, I think the very first report in 1990 is easier to read than the later ones, because it covers the basics to a greater extent.

If you want to focus on IR radiation transfer only, then you can play with a model on-line at this web site. Note that radiation transfer is dependent on things like cloud, temperature, other gases, location, etc., so that web page gives you a lot of options to choose some typical defaults. You can choose an altitude, and direction (up or down). At the very least, playing with that model might help you realize that there is no one single source of information that will convince you (or anyone).

As the discussion continues, be careful with statements like "But still, sorry, i cant see the big difference in insulation effect with the information you are providing." That starts to look like an argument from increduility, which is a pretty weak position.

Scaddenp has already referred to CO2 doubling causing a reduction of 4W/m² in outgoing IR radiation at the top of the atmosphere. Before you say "gee, that seems small", the climatological question is "what changes have to happen to bring the system back into equilibrium?"That answer was already provided by scaddenp, too: 1.1C temperature rise (global average) without feedbacks, or more like 3C with known feedbacks. You can see some of this in the Manabe and Wetherald paper I reference above. To put it simply, adding 4W/m² to every part of the surface, for the length of time it takes to readjust, adds up to a lot of energy.

scaddenp at 19:55 PM on 16 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

The straight radiative balance (ie doubling CO2 gives you an extra 4w/m2 of surface irradation) would only raise temperatures 1.1C. It is the feedbacks that lift this to around 3C, in part from increased water vapour as well as albedo and clouds.

PringlesX at 17:27 PM on 16 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

Thank you both.

I believe The 7% figure is the Co2-band area minus the H2O overlap.
But yes, regarding the total effect causing increase in temperature there are different complicated models taking feedback effects into account
that talks about much higher percentage effect.

"The planetary energy balance is determined by fluxes at the Top Of Atmosphere. "
Yes, that seems to be the case.

(The last clips in this series (about 40-61) are explaining how the frequency overtones developes with altitude which could be interesting for those readers not familiar with it.)
https://youtu.be/XIBsjBvRTew

scaddenp at 14:23 PM on 16 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

Might also be worth pointing out that Bob's diagrams are worth studying for understanding what is going on, but for real applications (whether GPS, heat-seeking missiles or climate models), you need to do full integration of the radiative transfer equations which funnily enough back the consensus science. Observations of change in radiation as CO2 increases from both earth looking up and satellite looking down match the solutions from the RTE integration with very high precision. See the examples here. My favourite paper working through it all is Ramanathan and Coakley 1978.

I am curious as to where the "7%" came from. This paper which I believe to be the consensus position makes it more like 20%.

Eclectic at 12:18 PM on 16 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

PringlesX , it might be worthwhile taking a step back, to look at the bigger context.

The planetary energy balance is determined by fluxes at the Top Of Atmosphere. But the TOA is a band of altitudes, depending on different radiatively-active molecules. The H2O effect is large — but occurs at lower altitude, because cold-temperature precipitation means that H2O molecules are scanty at the high altitudes (where CO2 is still "going strong").

So despite the IR radiation overlap between CO2 and H2O, the end result is that the CO2's greenhouse effect is disproportionately large for its small presence.

( I'm quite uncertain about the correctness of the 7% figure you mentioned ~ but there are knowledgeable posters here who might be prepared to discuss that particular point. But whether 7% or 17% etcetera, it is the end result of energy balance which matters.)

The other point is that you must consider the lapse rate , in looking at the mechanism of "greenhouse". Very important.

One Planet Only Forever at 08:44 AM on 16 September 2019

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2019

nigelj@4,

And new developments based on existing knowledge can also help, like the use of radiative cooling to produce power at night, as reported in this Bob McDonald science blog post on CBC News "Generating light from darkness"

PringlesX at 07:48 AM on 16 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

Yes, it has an effect on how broad/diffuse the radiation border is. But still, sorry, i cant see the big difference in insulation effect with the information you are providing.

Also on top of that, CO2 frequency bands not covered by Water vapour is only responsible for about 7% of the energy (?). Decreasing that already very thin transmission border even thinner doesnt seem to be able to do any catastrophic changes in insulation effect by itself.

Unless we could find better curves or explanation. Do you have some good sources that made you convinced about the large effect?

Bob Loblaw at 06:08 AM on 16 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

PringlesX:

Please note that the graph I have provided is not an accurate cacluation of IR transmisison in the atmosphere - it is a very crude example of how IR radiation would be transfered in an idealized "200 layer" situation. For real atmospheric transmission, the same Beer's Law applies, but you need to also consider:

A very large number of specific wavelengths of IR radiation, each with its own absorption coefficients
A large number of radiatively-active gases (of which CO2 is but one), each absorbing in varying amounts at a number of different wavelengths.
Each layer in the atmosphere also emits IR radiation (upwards, downwards, and sideways), so the total travelling either upwards or downwards at any height is a combination of the amount emitted in that layer plus the amount transmitted from adjacent layers.
The emissions or IR radiation depend on local temperature and gas concentrations. (Good absorbers are also good emitters, so adding CO2 makes the atmosphere emit IR radiation more efficiently.)
Radiation is not the only mechanism moving energy up and down through the atmosphere. Convective motion transfers energy, as either heat or water vapour (evaporated at the surface and condensed at altitude).

So the figure above is a very simplistic version of total IR radiation transfer.

Climatologists have "done the math" on this. (Well, a lot of the radiation theory was extensively developed by the military in the 1960s so their heat-seeking missles could use IR radiation to detect hot items they wanted to blow up.) The math says that adding CO2 will have a significant effect on radiation transfer in the atmosphere.

The math says "the atmosphere is not saturated for IR radiation transfer, for any useful or accurate concept of "saturation". The only "saturation" that occurs is for useless and innacurate descriptions of the process.

The area under or over the curves in my graph simply demonstrates that for two reasonable absorption coefficients, where the start and end points are the same (1 @ layer 0, and 0 @ layer 200, so "saturated" by one definition), you get very different results in the middle. When you see someone arguing that "the CO2 effect is saturated", there are two possibilities:

They haven't done the proper math and looked at what happens in the middle (or are relying on a source that hasn't told them about what happens in the middle).
They know that what happens in the middle and are not telling you about it because they know it refutes their argument.

My guess is that most people fall under category 1. If they are relying on a source for their information (rather than calculating it themselves), then most of the time they are relying on a source that can probably be connected eventually to someone that falls in category 2.

PringlesX at 03:57 AM on 16 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

Thanks for your answer.

As i see it, this graph depicts how diffused this transmission border is. And its already thin and very high up in the athmosphere compared to the number of layers the photons have to process.

Isnt safe to say that the areas ABOVE the lines, are the real difference between the CO2 levels from a photon perspective? If that is so, then it can be argued that the scenario is more or less saturated?

michael sweet at 22:32 PM on 15 September 2019

What will Earth look like in 2100?

Curtain eater,

In general it is better to ask one question in one post and make another post to ask another question. Use the search function in the upper left to find posts that address your questions. Often existing posts answer your question. OP's usually have more information than comments.

The ocean is so big that if all the ice sheets melt the ocean will still be the same salinity as it is today. The question is how long it might be before it gets cold enough for the sheets to reform. That may be 100,000 years or longer. Climate changes today are essentially permanent for future people.

There is too much pollution to launch it into space. There are people who think carbon dioxide can be injected into the Earth to get rid of it. Other pollutants would need to be dealt with differently. The job of injecting carbon dioxide into the Earth is so large that many people feel it is impossible. It would at least be very expensive.

The quesion of "no return" depends on how you ask it. If you want to return to the climate of 1900 than it may be too late to do anything in your lifetime. It may be possible to return to 1900 in a few hundred years at great expense. Who will pay for it? If you want to return to the climate of 2015 that would be cheaper (although very expensive).

The bottom line for me is what climate is best. In general, the best climate is the one you are used to. Rapid change in climate is bad because you are not used to it. For example, farmers grow crops that require certain temperatures and rain patterns. If the climate shifts than farmers have to grow different foods and will not have the right equipment for the new crops.

If it gets hot enough many tropical areas will be too hot to live in. Where will all the people who live there move? We may have passed the point where hundreds of millions of people have to move to survive. One million people moving from Syria caused huge problems in Europe. How much would people like seeing 100 million people moving?

One Planet Only Forever at 12:15 PM on 15 September 2019

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37

"You are such a big country," she says. "In Sweden, when we demand politicians to do something, they say, 'It doesn't matter what we do — because just look at the U.S.'
"I think you have an enormous responsibility" to lead climate efforts, she adds. "You have a moral responsibility to do that."

That comment from Greta regarding the USA is stating the long understood ethical expectations/requirements of those who are more able to influence things. But it is not fair to simply name the USA as the required leader. The expectations are for all of the more 'developed nations' to lead the sustainable corrections of the harmful unsustainable developments that have occurred (including increasing awareness and understanding), and help all of the less 'developed nations' advance in less harmful more sustainable ways.

That has been the globally agreed understanding for a long time, since before the Kyoto Accord which presents action expectations based on that understanding.

But it is an understanding that is improved by replacing 'developed nations' with 'fortunate people'.

The result is understanding that embraces all human interaction, not simply the actions of 'Nations'. It includes the actions within nations and within communities (admittedly it does not properly include consideration of future generations). And it more accurately highlights the portion of the population that needs to have its 'worth or merit' evaluated against a high expectation of helpfulness, with the truly most fortunate (in all nations, and in all multi-nationals) required to be 'most helpful' to those who are less fortunate (any more fortunate person found to be less helpful than a less fortunate person deserves to lose status).

That may sound 'radical'. But versions of that understanding have exited for 1000s of years, with powerful groups within the most fortunate portion of the population seen to be consistently fighting against that awareness and understanding becoming more popular, fighting against it developing into a Common Sense.

nigelj at 06:51 AM on 15 September 2019

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #36

The following text is from a climate change article at stuff.co.nz which is a large online newspaper in New Zealand. It has a startling admission in a revealing paragraph I have highlighted in bold type:

"We've witnessed that in the reader reaction to Stuff's Quick! Save the Planet project, which aims to make the realities of climate change feel urgent, tangible and unignorable. Today, we've joined Covering Climate Now – an ambitious, week-long global initiative emphasising the paramount importance of the climate story. "

"Covering Climate Now's roster features more than 240 news outlets, including the Guardian, CBS, the Times of India, and Asahi Shimbun. You'll see some of their stories on Stuff this week, alongside our original reporting. A broad selection of New Zealand's mainstream media is on board: 1 News, RNZ, Newshub, the NZ Herald, Newsroom and the Spinoff, as well as Stuff."

"Call it atonement. Collectively – and internationally – we as the media have for years allowed our taste for conflict to create the false impression that climate science was uncertain and a fit topic for debate. But as respectable media outlets increasingly dispense with any last remnants of climate science denialism, we're getting better at reporting this epoch-defining story accurately and constructively."

" During this Covering Climate Now week, Stuff will investigate the impact of trees, introduce New Zealand's climate change power-brokers, talk to trailblazing farmers learning to adapt, forecast what daily life could look like in 2050, and provide crucial information to help you vote in next month's council elections. In a new feature, Climate Lessons, scientists will share the knowledge gained from their research careers, and our ongoing Climate: Explained column will provide answers to common questions."

Bob Loblaw at 05:19 AM on 15 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

PringlesX:

Let me try to explain from a slightly different approach. First, keep track of the point that a coefficient of 0.95 means IR radiation is more easily transmitted through a single layer that when the coefficient is 0.9. So the 0.9 curve is the one with higher absorbing gases.

In the graph I posted in comment 529, moving from left to right tells you the probability of a photon being transmitted through to layer #x. After 20 layers:

with a coefficient of 0.95, the probability is 0.397
with a coefficient of 0.9, the probability is 0.135

Another way of thinking about it is the absorption. By layer 20:

with a coefficient of 0.95, the probability of being absorbed before reaching the top of layer 20 is 0.603
with a coefficient of 0.9, the probability of being absorbed before reaching the top of layer 20 is 0.865.

Now, iet's think about what happens to a photon that is emitted upwards from high in the atmosphere, 20 layers from space. What are its chances of either being absorbed in those 20 layers, versus its chances of being transmitted to space in one step? We can get that from the graph, too, because the graph gives us both the probability of absorption and the probability of transmission:

with a coefficient of 0.95, the probability of transmission through 20
layers (i.e., reaching space) is 0.397
with a coefficient of 0.9, the probability of transmission is 0.135

Getting back the the "saturation" argument, we can see that decreasing the transmission coefficient from 0.95 to 0.9 (increasing absorption, due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations) reduces the chance that IR radiation from a height 20 layers from space will be lost directly to space. So, the IR radiation that does reach space is more likely to be emitted at a higher altitude (close to space).

The "fact" that the whole atmosphere (200 layers) is "saturated" (no direct transmission) misses this important feature.

Does that help?

Curtain Eater at 21:40 PM on 14 September 2019

What will Earth look like in 2100?

This is basically just curiosity regarding science, (I'm a high school chemistry student so I apologize if this comment seems really stupid) but salt lowers the freezing point of water, right? So when ice melts and sea levels rise, would that make it less likely for example, for ice caps to re-freeze at a hypothetical future time? And if in our future there's some wild devised way to "clean" air, where would the pollutants go? Like let's say, hypothetically, a device is created that "scrubs" air of pollutants, what would be done with it? Sort of like when you shampoo your carpet and get rid of the dirty water afterwards I guess. I'm really just spitballing if I'm being honest, because with ADHD I have so much natural curiosity. But could that "dirty water" scrubbed from the air be put in some kind of small, pressurized capsule, and released into space? How do pollutants affect a vacuum? I don't know how that really works.

Additionally, if ways to regress are eventually devised, still hypothetically speaking, how much of a "comeback" could even be made? If any? Some people have claimed that we're already past a "point of no return" but I don't know if that's credible. Can there even be a point of no return? What determines "no return"?

Zoli at 20:39 PM on 14 September 2019

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

Sorry but deniers don't need to persuade leaders. See climate action tracker, it tells everything.

https://climateactiontracker.org/

Human 2932847 at 19:44 PM on 14 September 2019

The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing

Thank you for taking the time to help again.

Point taken about about the global effects of an AMOC shutdown. I was just thinking about Europe, or rather the bit where I live, just for simplicity.

Would a slowdown/shutdown of AMOC directly affect sea level on UK coasts ?

(BTW I wouldn't say a debunk means the final and definitive answer or end of disagreement. eg. Flat Earth has been debunked but the controversy and disagreement continue).

nigelj at 09:59 AM on 14 September 2019

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

Postkey @15

“If the predictions of Nordhaus’s Damage Function were true, then everyone—including Climate Change Believers (CCBs)—should just relax. The 8.5% decline that Nordhaus predicts from a 6 degree increase in average global temperature (here CCDs will have to pretend that AGW is real) would take 130 years if nothing were done to attenuate Climate Change...We should all just sit back and enjoy the extra warmth.”

ROFL. Noble words, but have you ever done any research into the reliability of economists predictions of gdp? Maybe even a simple google search? Economic predictions of this sort have proven to be virtually worthless, because economics is based on absurd assumptions about human behaviour.

Economists can't even predict gdp growth reliably a decade ahead much less in a century due to climate impacts. Economists can't see the next recession coming and 99% of them didn't see the GFC coming, by way of a simple example of their uselessness. In fact economists have a terrible record at predicting anything as below:

fivethirtyeight.com/features/economists-are-bad-at-predicting-recessions/

www.theguardian.com/money/2017/sep/02/economic-forecasting-flawed-science-data

Therefore humanity can take no comfort from anything Norduas says on economic growth. All we can say for sure is the impact of climate change on economic growth won't be good, and could be catastrophic. Nordhaus totally ignores the very real possibility of run away climate change that leads to disruption so severe that our civilisation and its institutions and economic systems collapses entirely, taking any economic growth down with them, and / or refugee crises totally destabilise the system.

It's also important to consider that economic growth is only one small part of what climate change does to the economy, one that totally ignores specific yet crucial effects like disease and food security. You can have reasonable economic growth, but be facing dire problems in critical areas.

Instead it is better to look at impacts a changing climate would have on the economy from a more holistic and wholistic and science based perspective as below:

climate.nasa.gov/effects/

www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/376708/dire-warning-on-us-climate-change-impacts

Economists have some use for analysing costs, but Nordhaus makes a total mess of this, refer the link I posted @11. Many assumptions are made and many problems are ignored or have token costs awarded to them. How can we even put a price on species loss?

One Planet Only Forever at 09:07 AM on 14 September 2019

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2019

doug_bostrom@3,

In addition to pitching fossil fuels for emergency energy needs, I would add that lots of easy to access fossil fuels could be incredibly helpful in the future for humans to mitigate the harmful effects of a natural extreme cooling event.

In fact, that could even be pitched to a religious person as part of God's plan, for humans to figure out how to use the fossil fuels to off-set or limit harsh natural climate changes. God's plan could have been for humans to figure out the natural climate cycles and find and figure out how to extract fossil fuels, and save them in the ground for such a future emergency use. Humanity may even be able to use them in the event of an asteroid striking the planet.

Postkey at 08:17 AM on 14 September 2019

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

If?

“If the predictions of Nordhaus’s Damage Function were true, then everyone—including Climate Change Believers (CCBs)—should just relax. An 8.5 percent fall in GDP is twice as bad as the “Great Recession”, as Americans call the 2008 crisis, which reduced real GDP by 4.2% peak to trough. But that happened in just under two years, so the annual decline in GDP was a very noticeable 2%. The 8.5% decline that Nordhaus predicts from a 6 degree increase in average global temperature (here CCDs will have to pretend that AGW is real) would take 130 years if nothing were done to attenuate Climate Change, according to Nordhaus’s model (see Figure 1). Spread over more than a century, that 8.5% fall would mean a decline in GDP growth of less than 0.1% per year. At the accuracy with which change in GDP is measured, that’s little better than rounding error. We should all just sit back and enjoy the extra warmth.”

evonomics.com/steve-keen-nordhaus-climate-change-economics/

PringlesX at 07:21 AM on 14 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

OK, i see what you mean after i reread your post. But the graph description also says Beers Law decay. Is that curve really applicable for energy transmitted into space for each layers?

If yes, what coeffecient is 400 ppm corresponding to, compared to 800ppm?

PringlesX at 07:12 AM on 14 September 2019

CO2 effect is saturated

I am sorry for perhaps making a basic question (my first post). But in that last submitted graph the first layer is numbered to the left where most of the effect is happening. So shouldnt that left side be seen as the surface of the earth? And the right side be seen as space?

nigelj at 06:23 AM on 14 September 2019

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2019

Grid reliability with renewables is a non issue that can be easily resolved. More and more renewables will push the system to the limits, which means storage will be required, such as battery storage or pumped hydro, and if the economics of this are problematic at scale, nuclear power can provide some of the storage function by providing stable baseload at moderate cost (not that I'm much of a nuclear power fan, but its an option) or limited use of gas fired for emergency shortages like DC says. The point is we have options going forwards.

www.prescouter.com/2017/12/renewable-energy-nuclear-power/

Doug Bostrom at 02:06 AM on 14 September 2019

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2019

"...our species will survive but never again at todays advanced level."

In the developed world we sit at the apex of a very fragile pyramid, our tap-and-swipe Eloi indolence supported by a spindly web of free market optimization. Earlier this year a 13 minute unscheduled power outage in Japan caused multi-month stoppage of some 1/3 of the world's NAND flash memory production, this manufacturing being highly concentrated, lacking redudancy but also extremely sensitive to disruptions.

One way to pitch fossil fuel preservation to folks who can't or won't understand its other problems might be to pitch it as a robust and easily exploited backup energy source for the case of another "Carrington Event." Ideally combustion of fossil fuels would be an exceptional activity, reserved for cases of emergency need.

prove we are smart at 17:38 PM on 13 September 2019

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2019

I often wonder what have we got to lose? If we reduce our reliance on fossil fuel use,everyone and the environment will benefit..if we continue with fossil fuel use and catastrophic postive feedback loops develop with no way to stop them getting worse, why take that chance? The status quo has to change or were dooming ourselves along with our currently rapidly accelerating 6th extinction event. I think our species will survive but never again at todays advanced level..

prove we are smart at 17:19 PM on 13 September 2019

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

The bogus claims from these hundred+ climate denier scientists ..Is it too simplistic/harmful to name and shame in a BIG way these 2% ...

prove we are smart at 17:05 PM on 13 September 2019

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36

Mal Adapted @ 8 & 10, an interesting discussion accompanying those 2 charts and how best to understand them , thanks for the links. A quote from Mark Twain i use on my signature from another forum seems applicable here.." Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness ".

One Planet Only Forever at 12:02 PM on 13 September 2019

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

nigelj@11,

One of the most grossly inaccurate assumptions made by the likes of Nordhaus is the belief that perceptions of prosperity and success that are based on unsustainable actions harmful to the future of humanity (not just fossil fuels), can continue and improve.

GDP per-capita has increased significantly yet desperate-poverty still exists. And one of the twisted stories about poverty is that a self-sufficient farm family is counted as being in poverty, but a city slum-exister earning $3 a day is not in poverty. And any perceptions of poverty reduction that are the result of fossil fuel use are likely not sustainable.

Humanity's economic history cannot be continued. Resource depletion and accumulating negative impacts require corrective constraints on economic activity. What has been developed is already recognized as unsustainable. It is like a Stock Market or Housing Market bubble. It is destined toward a Pop and Correction.

And if it is dealt with like past bubbles (just letting things get sorted out in the business and political marketplaces of popularity and profit), the expected result is a bigger more harmful boom than necessary and massive resistance to the corrections required to minimize how harmful the system is in(to) the future.

How many less fortunate people will suffer horribly, and how many undeserving more fortunate people will become even more fortunate, is all a matter of the objectives of the developed socioeconomic-political systems. Currently those systems are not governed by the objective of improving awareness and understanding to achieve a sustainable improving future for humanity. And any evaluation based on the fairy-tale that the Developed Systems are Good (like the Nordhaus evaluation) is destined to be unsustainable, no matter how precise or complete they are regarding the 'cost considerations' in the evaluation.

The expectation of continued economic success from a starting point of a massive amount of unsustainable and harmful economic activity is very unrealistic.

nigelj at 08:20 AM on 13 September 2019

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #36

Something predictable: Trump suggests 'nuking hurricanes' to stop them hitting America – report

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