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MSMITH at 08:29 AM on 12 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Michael Sweet:
I need to respond immediately to one thing: "In general I do not discuss radioactive waste or problems that radioactivity causes because nuclear supporters do not care how many people they kill with radioactivity."
I care very much that the death rate from nuclear power, at all levels of the process, from mining to final disposal is much less than that of other technologies. This has been mentioned early. But I would never accuse you of not caring (for example) about the number of people killed during erection of a wind turbine, nor would I accuse you of not caring about the number of people who die falling off a roof maintaining a solar panel.
I therefore consider it a misrepresentation of my position. You imply by your statement the following:
1.) The death rate from nuclear is higher than all other sources of power.
2.) Nuclear supporters know this.
3.) Nuclear supporters choose nuclear anyway, for some other reason.
Number 1 is demonstrably false. Number 2 are therefore rendered irrelevant.
"Personally attacking other users gets us no closer to understanding the science."
You are, however, correct that I did not mention transuranics. But my statement did say "on the order of natural uranium." Yes, transuranics are there, but as there has been no study that has detected any increase in death rates due to radiation exposure on the order of natural background radiation
From the Radiation in Everyday LIfe by the IAEA:
"There are many high natural background radiation areas around the world where the annual radiation dose received by members of the general public is several times higher than the ICRP dose limit for radiation workers. The numbers of people exposed are too small to expect to detect any increases in health effects epidemiologically."
So, if we have been unable to detect the health effects from doses several times higher than the limit for people working in the nuclear power industry, does it not stand to reason that health effects from doses of about 10% of that limit would also be undetectable?
"Nuclear supporters hope to have breeder reactors in 2050 which is too late."
No it's not. For the first 700 - 900 years or so, the radioactivity in spent fuel is dominated by the Sr-90 and Cs-137 I mentioned earlier. If somebody was worried about the dose due to transuranics, storage for even 100 years, followed by reprocessing at that point, provides adequate protection from that portion of the dose that comes from transuranics.
"I note that you have provided no citatioins even to nucear industry propaganda."
As stated in the beginning of my first post, I would establish facts and then support those that you did not agree with. As much of what I said comes from many years of study, from textbooks and in-depth coursework, and from references, it would be useless to go to great lengths to provide adequate references to something that you acknowledged openly.
But now that it's been questioned, I will respond to specifics:
"(90% of current reactors face serious flooding issues which they have not addressed)"
As we are talking about expansion of nuclear power, it makes sense to talk about new designs, not current designs. And specifically, since I did in fact mention SMR in reference to the Clinch River site, we'll simply mention that the flooding issue for the NuScale SMR is simply n/a. The reactor sits in a below-grade pool of water, and requires no power to remain in a safe condition. Flooding is literally not a concern.
And that's not my position. It's the NRCs position. They have accepted that the NuScale reactor needs no AC or DC power to remain safe, which of course is what killed Fukushima, and which all of the flooding concerns ultimately hinge upon.
"It is easy to say a location is suitable without considering the suppy of cooling water,"
A nuclear plant needs about as much cooling water as a coal plant. Replacing a coal plant with a nuclear plant uses the same water a coal plant was using.
"local population, availabiity of land,"
Site boundary sized Emergency Planning Zone. Those words mean something. They literally mean that I could place an SMR facility to replace of a coal plant and not need to worry about evacuations, or off-site dose, and not even worry about zoning, as it stays zoned for industrial.
Again, as reference, Here is the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Clinch River site.
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MA Rodger at 03:47 AM on 12 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Philippe Chantreau @84,
Surely, the big problem with scaling up nuclear power generation from 400-odd power plants to thousands is the fuel supply. According to the World Nuclear Association, today's power plants are chewing their way through 65,000 tons of uranium a year. World-wide reserves as of 2017 were 6 million tons with perhaps double that if expected reserves are added. That would power today's level of nuclear power for perhaps 200 years. But increase that level of nuclear power ten-fold and you only have the fuel for 20 years of operation.
The industry response to this limitation of fuel supply is not much more than hand-waving at the potential for new reserves that could be found if there is a need. But this is in the context of far less than a ten-fold increase in nuclear power.
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Philippe Chantreau at 01:57 AM on 12 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
It seems to me that nuclear proponents heavily push for technologies that have not really been proven and would take a long time to deploy. The enhanced geothermal plant at Soult sous Foret is a more proven solution, it is producing commercial electricity as we speak.
Nuclear also costs enormous amounts of money, too much for anything but a large public investment, but the public tends to end up with the short end of the stick in these ventures. In most instances I have heard of, the deal amounts to "your taxpayer's money builds us a plant, then we, the company with the know-how, operate it as if we owned it, raking in the profits." Sounds like a really good deal for one side.
The other problem is this: right now there are about 450 nuclear plants in the world, mostly in countries where a strong safety culture can be maintained. If this was scaled up to 10,000 or 50,000 plants in a wide variety of countries, it would be inevitable that some individual driven by a crazy ideology would at some point do something really stupid and criminal.
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michael sweet at 22:13 PM on 11 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Msmith,
In general I do not discuss radioactive waste or problems that radioactivity causes because nuclear supporters do not care how many people they kill with radioactivity. Nuclear is uneconomic and takes too long to build.
You have neglected to consider all the transuranic elements in the waste. They have much longer half-live than cesium and strontium. The typical time needed for them to decay is 100,000 to 1,000,000 years.
If you want to use breeder reactors to burn the trans-uranics you must first wait for the technology to be developed. Nuclear supporters hope to have breeder reactors in 2050 which is too late. Nuclear never makes its timelines. The cost of reprocessing the fuel, and the procedure to reprocess it, are unknown. I note that Ritchieb1234, who is a nuclear supporter, suggests that breeder reactors are not practical.
I doubt that you could find hundreds of suitable locations for reactors in the USA. It is easy to say a location is suitable without considering the suppy of cooling water, local population, availabiity of land, issues of flooding (90% of current reactors face serious flooding issues which they have not addressed) and other required issues. Multiple reactors at a single location require even more water. You need to place 4,000 1,000 MW reactors or 14,000 small reactors for the USA alone. Your claim of hundreds of suitable sites is simply false.
I note that you have provided no citatioins even to nucear industry propaganda.
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MSMITH at 11:49 AM on 11 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Michael Sweet
I am late to this conversation, as I just found it today. There is much I would like to respond to, but I'll start with your comment #90. Specifically the claim that "the waste must be stored for longer than civilization has existed."
I will not initially cite peer-reviewed articles. I will present facts, and if one of those facts is disputed, I will work to provide the support needed to establish the fact. For background, I have a Master's Degree in nuclear engineering.
The nuclear fission process produces something radioactive from something already radioactive. The splitting of U-235 after absorbing a neutron produces two different particles, each with it's own half-life. Most of these half-lives are measured in terms of seconds, minutes or hours. As a result, the radioactivity level drops rather quickly the first few days after fission stops, and then much more slowly.
So, a pertinent question is "how slowly?" Well, the answer is mostly the result of two isotopes that can be produced by fission (or the decay of another fission product with a shorter half-life.) These two are Sr-90 and Cs-137, both with a half-life of about 30 years. At the time they are discharged from the reactor, they are incredibly more radioactive than the Uranium they started as. But if you do the math, at the 1000 year point, they've dropped in intensity by about 10 factors of 10, or to 1 out of 10,000,000,000.
At that point, the radioactivity level of everything that remains is on the order of the natural uranium that started. WIll it be stored anyway? Yes, of course. But will it present a greater hazard to a person 1000 years from now than natural uranium left unmined?
No. If the source term is lower, the consequence of a leak, if one were to occur, can be no worse than leaving the natural uranium buried.
My quibble is with your use of the word "must." The waste "must" be stored until it is about the same radioactivity level as natural uranium. At that point, further storage is optional, at least from a risk perspective. We may establish a higher storage period, without technical merit, but we should recognize that a chosen period beyond about 1000 years lacks that merit.
And the Egyptians stored wheat in clay pots buried in pyramids for 1000 years. I think technology has advanced a tad since then.
One further comment, directly at the Abbott papers you cite in #90. The "limited available locations." Abbott was writing about the requirements for the locations of large light water reactors. Recently the NRC has reviewed a request for an Early Site Permit for Clinch River near Oak Ridge TN. They, after reviewing all of the technical data for a proposed Small Modular Reactor at the site, have concluded that the site is suitable for a SMR facility with a site-boundary sized Emergency Planning Zone. This one fact opens up the number of suitable locations by several orders of magnitude. I can easily meet Abbott's challenge to find 10 sites that would be suitable in just a few moments. I could find hundreds.
I am not claiming that Abbott was wrong. Simply that he did not have the precognition to apply the requirements of the future technology to the paper he was writing in 2012.
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nigelj at 07:17 AM on 11 July 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #27, 2019
Some other research with full text available for free: The influence of social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism on environmentalism: A five-year cross-lagged analysis.
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:09 AM on 11 July 2019It's the sun
ThirdStone,
You should ask yourself how you came to bring the question "why is this being ignored" instead of "is it true that this is being ignored."
You show very little familiarity with the subject in your disk to sphere comment. It is very likely that you were subject to faulty sources of information, which you nevertheless found credible enough to then come here asking a question indicating you accepted as an established fact that these influences were being ignored, when in fact they have been carefully considered and evaluated. Why did you find the faulty information credible? How much scrutiny did you apply to it?
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Eclectic at 22:12 PM on 10 July 2019It's the sun
ThirdStone @1266 ,
the ratio of area of a disc (receiving sunshine) to the area of a sphere is 1:4 and hence the division by 4
The scientists look very carefully at sun activity, and find that the 11-year cycle of solar activity is too slight to produce noticeable cyclic fluctuation in climate. Or did you have some other factor in mind?
"Cosmic Rays" are a failed hypothesis for climate change, and can be dismissed. A triple fail, because (A) CR effects appear non-existent for the period (since mid-20th Century) that CR levels have been measured directly, and (B) likewise the paleological (proxy) measurements of CR variation show no appreciable link to climate changes, and (C) the 2016 experiments at CERN show negligible CR effect on cloud nucleation (negligible in comparison with the nucleation from marine-origin particles). As they say: Cosmic Rays were a "Nice Try" as an idea for climate influence, but when tested against reality, they were a major fail not just on one way but on three separate ways of testing.
Moderator Response:[PS] Surprising to see cosmic rays still coming up but for more detail (and the papers which tested the hypothesis) see "its cosmic rays" myth.
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ThirdStoneFromTheSun at 20:47 PM on 10 July 2019It's the sun
Hello,
could you explain to me, why "The solar radiative forcing is TSI in Watts per square meter (W-m-2) divided by 4 to account for spherical geometry", when only half of the Earth is being shined on by the Sun? Also why are other Sun cycles being ignored, not to mention galactic rays possibly influencing cloud formation. Thank you
Moderator Response:[PS] Why do you believe that these are "ignored"? Solar influences are discussed in every IPCC report and AR4 Chp 7 examined the science around cosmic rays in some detail.
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Penguin17935 at 11:50 AM on 10 July 2019Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
Thanks!
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:38 AM on 10 July 2019France’s record-breaking heatwave made ‘at least five times’ more likely by climate change
It's easy to criticize, much more difficult to do the work. I read the links in the OP. I do not find Wffranz description to be even remotely adequate. I recommend readers to follow the links and for their own opinion. There are methods used in economics that are far less solid than what the attribution researchers did as preliminary analysis in this case.
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Penguin17935 at 08:00 AM on 10 July 2019Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
There did not seem to be an obvious place to post these queries, so please redirect me if appropriate - links to references would be great thanks... Out of general curiosity..
1) To what extent is earth cooling (heat emission from the surface - volcanoes, earthquakes, geysers, steam etc) contributing to surface warming?
2) People generate heat from activity. I also read that energy use per person increases as countries become more developed. If we did not increase net CO2 (through burning etc) and used other energy sources (e.g. nuclear) how much heat per person at the surface would we still be contributing to surface warming? Put in another way, how much ∆AGW is directly atributable just to ∆population numbers?
3) A general query re the atmopsphere - if we add gasses (like CO2) the atmosphere becomes heavier. At a given temperature does the atmosphere [by PV = nT] expand, or does sea level pressure increase (or both)? In a similar vein, if T increases, does the atmosphere expand or sea level pressure increase (or both)? Also what is the effect (if any) on atmospheric pressure and volume of adding particulate matter (e.g.smoke or dust)?
4) Why are some gasses apparently well distributed within the atmosphere (like CO2) and some (like Ozone) form layers? Are some gasses proportionatey more prevalent in the Troposphere than the stratosphere?
Moderator Response:[PS] See Underground temperatures control climate and Its waste heat and put any further questions on 1/ or 2/ there. Ditto for any responders. Please use the Search function (top left) or the "Arguments" menu topic to find appropriate threads.
Since CO2 increase is from FF burning, O2 is also decreasing. n in PV = nRT isnt changing much. Even if not an increase of 100ppm in CO2 would be global change of hundredth % in pressure which I doubt could be measured.
For ozone, try here. Short answer is that ozone layer where ozone is naturally produced but it is naturally destroyed rapidly as well.
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nigelj at 07:55 AM on 10 July 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #27, 2019
Gunnar Littmarck, yeah well a warmer greenland would be nice for growing some forests and crops there, but what about sea level rise as it melts, and what about a warmer tropical zone? Of course looking at the big picture does require a certain level of thinking.
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nigelj at 07:49 AM on 10 July 2019France’s record-breaking heatwave made ‘at least five times’ more likely by climate change
Wffrantz, sometimes assumptions are made but they are not the core of the modelling, and they are not guesses, they are based on a lot of evaluation. You would need to provide a copy and paste from research where you think a specific assumption is not justified. Otherwise if you can't do this you are spreading cynical propoganda, and I think your comment should be deleted.
Your example of a spurious correlation has no relevance to climate models, because climate modelling insn't based on correlations alone, they consider causation.
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Terminus Est at 04:05 AM on 10 July 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/MSR-Molten-salt-reactor.pdf
Generation 4 Molten Salt Reactors.
Moderator Response:[DB] Activated hyperlink
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Terminus Est at 03:26 AM on 10 July 2019Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
DPiedpgrass Thanks. People are ignoring Gen 4 nuclear. We at least need to build some prototype reactors before we give up. China is leading in Gen 4 Fission reactors. They have just started a Gen 4 Gas Cooled, Pebble Bed Reactor prototype. If the US does not want this technology the Chinese will. Gas cooled reactors are extremely safe. They use silcon, carbon and ceramic fuel spheres rather than having melting steel fuel rods currently in use. China is going to build over 50 nuclear reactors. We should help them make the safest possible reactors. Trump has just stopped the US/Chinese TWR reactor project by Terrapower.
This is a serious option. And we need more options. Just saying we need to build prototypes to check they work. Or China will.
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Wffrantz at 02:46 AM on 10 July 2019France’s record-breaking heatwave made ‘at least five times’ more likely by climate change
Maybe so. Maybe not. But certainly not via the method they used. Let's summarize what they did.
B is assumed to affect A in some proportion. Build a model around that. When A is seen in real time, go back to the model to see if B was the cause ... and pretent that the original proportion was a fact, not an assumption.
Really? This is Attribution Science? Can we just call it what it is so as not to discredit science? "Stott, a leading attribution scientist" should be changed to "Scott, a leading attributionist". By his method ...
"Worldwide non-commercial space launches was 5x more likely because of the number of Sociology doctorates awarded (US)". [see https://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=805]
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Gunnar Littmarck at 02:13 AM on 10 July 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #27, 2019
Why do you call your self skeptical science when you are not skeptical att all, just trying to find argument to support your opinion?Every educated in all relevant disciplines know that the CO2-threat is scientific rejected, in this 2,6 million long ice age.
The interglacial before was 2,5 C warmer globally and 8 C for 6000 years on Greenland with just positive effects on life.
Desert are cooling, that´s why it was 2 C warmer global early in this interglacial with 6 C warmer climate on Svalbard.
If there was an increased greenhouse effect as result of higher level CO2 than 300 ppm it would give a signal in 15 µm where no other greenhouse gases act and the level of CO2 shift between region and seasons.
Skeptical science, my ass.
Moderator Response:[DB] Welcome to Skeptical Science. Unlike most other venues that you might be familiar with, this venue uses the scientific method and places the burden upon participants to support their claims with citations to credible sources, preferably those appearing in peer-reviewed journals of note or from primary producer organizations.
That places the Burden of Proof upon you to support your claims you've made, not for others to disprove them.
Please familiarize yourself with this site's Comments Policy and construct future comments to comply with it.
Cursing snipped.[PS] SkpSci is interested in real skeptism of the scientific kind. ie critical thinking, peer review etc as opposed to motivated reasoning. Pseudo-skeptics are only skeptical about what conflicts with pre-determined positions and swallow nonsense that suits their narrative without a thought (ie you might like to check your positions). If you cant imagine any data backing the science changing your mind, then this is not the site for you.
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RedBaron at 11:13 AM on 9 July 2019Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change
@1 bjchip,
Yes, Savory has a big idea with even more potential than the other "Big Ideas" mentioned in this article. It is also included in a more limited way as part of project drawdown as well. So there is that as well.
In my opinion there is no solution to AGW that doesn't include this at least in part, because it is the only current technology both scale-able enough and also fiscally sound that humans have available in their tool kit at the moment.
Otherwise the evidence suggests even 100% elimination of fossil fuels won't be enough and the legacy carbon will continue to heat the surface for decades at minimum and maybe even 100's of years. We have about .5c thermal inertia of the oceans: climate inertia; and we also have 1.5c loss of albedo from melting ice as a feed back:
Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History, and likely another 1c from various other reinforcing feedbacks like methane releases from melting permafrost and vegetative die off of areas due to climate zones moving faster than biomes can adjust.So somewhere around 1.5-3.0 c additional warming if emissions went to zero today.
The only technology capable of reversing this is in fact what Savory proposed, and is indeed beginning to do on 10's of millions of acreas already through his worldwide network he set up.
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michael sweet at 07:28 AM on 9 July 2019Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1
Ritchieb1234
Googleing again I found out that the MDPI journal Climate is considered a predatory journal. It is common for skeptic articles to be in Journals that will publish anything for a fee.
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michael sweet at 07:13 AM on 9 July 2019Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1
Ritchieb1234,
Answering your query from here, I do not read a lot about very old temperatures. Searching online I found most of the skeptic blogs had coments on your paper but no real science blogs talked about it. I thought I had read a review of it but it must have been a comment somewhere.
The abstract states that Davis performed a correlation study of CO2 and temperature over the past 450 million years. He does not mention any other forcings that he considered.
Only skeptics think that CO2 is the only factor that affects climate. 450 million years ago the sun was much weaker than it is today. You must consider that in your analysis which Davis apparently neglected to do. In addition, volcanic activity was higher 450 million years ago, since there was more radioactivity in the Earth, and that must also be consdered. Other forcings like dust and albeido affect temperature and must be considered in a real analysis.
Since Davis neglected to consider all the known forcings in addition to the CO2 forcings his results have little meaning. I note that he confirms that high CO2 time periods coincide with mass extinctions. How could that happen? If you search you can find a paper by real scientists who consider all the forcings and show that past temperatures are predicted by current science.
If you waste time readig skeptic bogs you will never be able to understand AGW.
Re recent skeptic publications: Every year more skeptics give up. The quality of skeptic papers like Davis's are very low and real scientists do not read them. A few fossil fuel companies pay people like Davis to publish their stuff. Nic Lewis pushes very low climate sensitivity. Recent record temperatures show that Lewis is wrong but he persists.
Realclimate occasionally posts on skeptic papers if you read their old stuff. Tamino also comments on stuff posted on skeptic blogs.
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HitchhikingResearch at 05:21 AM on 9 July 2019Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change
Wow! Thank you for this post! I had never heard of Rocky Mountain Institute before and am loving their, "Solutions Journal." Love this quote from the Spring 2019 issue, "“In the face of today’s climate challenge, both despair and complacency are equally unwarranted.” Truth. I'm glad to see some Gen Z recognition whenever I can . . . "Young social activists
and student and nonprofit leaders are helping to accelerate the energy transition from the ground up." However, my all time favorite quote from the Spring 2019 issue is this: “We may be avocado-toast eating,
big-box-retail destroying, collegeindebted millennials, but we also are
the most connected and globally conscious generation in history.”B R I L L I A N T
"The wizarding world needs you, Hailey!" Bahahahaha. <3 <3 <3
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:59 AM on 9 July 2019Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1
richieb1234, I don't know exactly what you mean by "the skeptic community." The scientific community has produced a lot of work since 2011. The weight of the evidence points in one direction.
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richieb1234 at 20:33 PM on 8 July 2019Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1
This is a very useful compilation of articles, and I was able to find some interesting analyses. But has the list been updated since 2011? It seems that the general level of available information on global warming has matured a lot since then; has the skeptic community kept up?
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Letchim at 14:54 PM on 8 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Thanks for clarifying this for me it is good to get a more critical view as I just don't have the knowledge, I suppose Hansen distracted me without spending the time to look into things more deeply
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nigelj at 07:58 AM on 8 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
Michael Sweet @4, a very interesting article thanks. Long but worth a scan.
The final chapter looks a lot like managed retreat to me. Costs of sea walls to protect communities against 1 metre of sea level rise per century will be prohibitive . Its been difficult enough managing storm surges and 300 mm sea level rise last century, so the future looks bleak. Of course it will vary place to place based on land area, population size and geography, and incomes, but this would be the general rule.
In NZ both central and local government at city scale are signalling they will warn homeowners about sea level rise risks in formal written documents, and it will be some form of managed retreat. This is all unresolved at this stage and one suspects people might demand sea walls as an instinctive response, once they wake up to what governmnet is proposing.
With managed retreat coastal property owners will see the value of their properties destroyed by having to abandon or move properties. Even building sea walls could have the same outcome of reduced property values. Its a question of how we deal with these people as it becomes a very visible problem and plunges people into poverty. There are two obvious options:
1) A local government and community initiative to financially compensate people, but this looks like it will be messy and impractical and well outside normal functions of local city scale government. Local government finances will be hard pressed just relocating roads etc without bailing out home owners.
2) It will all more likely fall back on central or state governments to help people with financial assistance, either by specifically targetted assistance for destrroyed properties, or through normal poverty alleviation and social welfare systems. Governments are normaly the provider of assistance of last resort when all else fails, and private sector insurance doesnt cover things. This will probbaly flow over into climate related issues. The increased pressure on governmnet spending will be a significant burden, right at the same time the population is aging and people who resent their taxes going towards poor people and people with problems will be very vocal.
Either way I suspect the can will probably be kicked down the road.
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cpske at 23:01 PM on 7 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
Re: Carbon Tax
I call your attention to the Citizens Climate Lobby (https://citizensclimatelobby.org/). This group recently held a 'lobby in' where they met with members of Congress to lobby for a carbon tax. They report Congress is becoming more receptive. (On a side note, they noted many in the GOP have gone to their think tanks on how to address Climate Change.)
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michael sweet at 22:05 PM on 7 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
I thought this was an interestig article about dealig with sea level rise in California. Some want more sea walls and others say we need to move back.
The artice is long. My summary: people realize they are hosed and must move. They do not want to give up in the face of slow distruction. What will the final chpater look like?
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you for flagging the LA Times article — it's well worth reading. .
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MA Rodger at 21:16 PM on 7 July 2019The HadSST4 Sea Surface Temperature dataset
Wffrantz @1,
Without mention of the GloSAT project in the OP, your scenario is probably entirely off-topic. That aside, as I understand your "scenario", it isn't well thought through.
You set out a three-part climate with the deep ocean, the surface ocean (perhaps the mixed layer) and the atmosphere. Your U values you borrow from building insulation but the principle of an average factor of heat transfer for the interfaces within a three-part climate is fine. And whether the relative size of these factors fits with your assumptions would need a bit of work.
Where the real problems begin to appear is in the idea that a cold period of climate lasting almost half a millenia (the period ascribed to Little Ice Age in IPCC AR5 is 1450-1850) will still be cooling the climate at its conclusion and the onset of a warming. The idea of 'inertia' caused by the thermal capacity of the oceans is widely understood. This would slow the warming process. But it would not result in a situation where "ocean surface temperatures still drop."
To achieve such a "drop", the deep oceans would have to be out-of-equilibrium with the rest of the climate before the warming begins, itself not inconceivable abet the 400-year period of cold. But the "drop" requires the deep ocean to have somehow cooled below equilibrium of the preceding colder climate. Such a situation requires more than 'inertia' to achieve. So without some additional mechanism the 'scenario' you present cannot occur.
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BaerbelW at 17:00 PM on 7 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
nigelj - some of the proposals are at least in the direction of carbon fee and dividend. Perhaps not yet fully fleshed-out, but we (as in CCL Germany and and a European Citizens Initiative) are working towards that.
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ubrew12 at 16:37 PM on 7 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
The link to the Jeff Masters (wunderground: "Protective Wind Shear Barrier Against Hurricanes... Likely to Weaken...") article is broken. I found it here.
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you for bringing this glitch to our attention. It has been fixed.
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nigelj at 07:43 AM on 7 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
"Insisting such a (carbon) tax would not unduly burden the poor, she said, "those who decide to live a more climate-friendly life could actually get money back."
Apparently this is to be through some sort of rewards scheme for the middle classes if they do the right thing, and the poor are given rebates to compensate them. This sounds nice in 'theory', but would create considerable bureaucratic complexity. The more complicated the proposal, the longer it will take to actually pass legislation, and time is a luxury we no longer have, given the lack of progress thus far, the speed at which climate change is progressing and the rate at which emissions are still rising.
Carbon fee and dividend would be a whole lot simpler. Given that wind and solar power is becoming cost competitive, you don't need to use a carbon tax to subsidise this any more, so it could all be given back as a dividend.
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Wffrantz at 01:41 AM on 7 July 2019The HadSST4 Sea Surface Temperature dataset
Quite interesting.
Unfortunate that the data doesn't go back to the end of the little ice age (1870). If we had that, then we could make assessments about the ocean heat sink. As an object is being cooled (ocean), heat transfer is from its surface between water-air and water-earth. But, unlike a solid object, oceans can mix deep water with surface water faster than heat transfer allows through vertical currents.
Scenario. The ocean cools during the little ice age (1300 - 1870), creating a huge heat sink after 570 years. Afterwards, surface air heats up. If surface air to water has a U value of say 5 to 30, then it will have litte effect on ocean surface temperature relative to water core to water surface because of the large difference between surface and core temperatures (the core being about 17 C cooler than the surface) and the much higher U value of heat transfer between water and water that is 30+ or so times greater. This would allow air surface temperatures to rise while ocean surface temperatures still drop. If we saw a lag in ocean temps after the little ice age, that might confirm the above scenario.
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michael sweet at 22:48 PM on 6 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Letchim,
The video you link would be deleted as a post at SkS because they make many unsupported claims that are transparently false. They dismiss the peer reviewed literature in favor of their unsupported personal opinions.
Schillenberger states at the end that nuclear waste is not a problem because no-one is killed by it. He does not mention the widespread problems of nuclear waste like the Hanford site in Washington state and dismisses the concern that the waste must be stored for longer than civilization has existed.
Hansen and Schillenberger suggest that new designs manufactured in factories will make nuclear "cheaper than coal". Big deal. They answer none of Abbotts questions. If their new designs work out as planned, a first for the nuclear industry, the manufactured units will not be available until 2040. That is too late to help.
Hansen damages his credibility with obviously false claims about nuclear.
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MA Rodger at 20:29 PM on 6 July 2019Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Penguin @370,
Adding more detail to michael sweet @372, you are asking about a 6,000 word article from 2018 entitled "CO2 is Not Driving Global Warming" written by...Well we do not learn the name of the "NARTE certified electromagnetic compliance engineer with more than 30 years practical experience" who is also "a systems engineer with plenty of experience in software design and development" with the "lifetime fascination with astronomy and cosmology." That is never a good sign - to flaunt your qualifications without naming yourself.
Whoever he is, it took him from 2006 (the Al Gore flim) until 2018 to decide to present this grand revelation to the world, even though he had "alarm bells ringing" in 2006. A second bad sign.
And he asserts that the theory underpinning AGW is no more that a CO2/GlobalTemperature correlation which is nonsense. A third bad sign.
The entirety is un-referenced which is fine when it is discussing widely understood subjects but when it begins to dip into fantasy, the lack of referencing becomes entirely unscientific and fatal for the presented thesis. Thus CO2 contributes roughly 16% to the greenhouse effect and would unassisted provide 25% of the greenhouse effect. I can say that un-referenced without much controversy. But within an un-referencing article, the assertion that CO2 is "responsible for more than 2.8% of greenhouse gas warming" is the beginning of the end for this grand thesis.
A few paragraphs later he asserts that CO2 absorbtion is IR is multiply-counted (a bit like double-counted but many more times) thus "cumulatively contributing to atmospheric warming." Such an idea is nonsensical. And nobody has spotted this alleged eggregious error? That would require some very good explanation. (The assertion "CO2 will not radiate more infrared energy than it absorbs if it’s at the same temperature as its surroundings" appears fundamental to the poor understanding of the author. It is precisely because it is the gas temperture that defines the CO2 IR emissions (and thus not the levels of absorbed-IR as he asserts) which creates the power of the CO2 greenhouse effect. Thus the comment "Increasing CO2 concentrations ... would mean that the greenhouse effect of CO2 will be concentrated at lower altitudes" is back-to-front.)The guts of his unsupported assertions run:-
"[CO2] is plainly saturated. Adding more CO2 to the system will not result in any less energy being radiated into space at those frequencies"
"The other misstatement in this [AGW] argument is that, “... it is the layers from which radiation does escape that determine the planet’s heat balance.” This is incorrect. The temperature of the upper layers of the atmosphere has no effect on the IR radiation if that atmosphere is transparent to the IR radiation. If the transmissivity of the atmosphere is at or near one, the IR radiation will simply pass through it with no interaction. If it were otherwise, then IR radiation simply wouldn’t propagate through the atmosphere at all. Since there is little to no water vapor at high altitudes where the atmospheric temperature are claimed to be a factor, the atmosphere is completely transparent to IR radiation across most of the spectrum." [My bold]
He is effectively saying 'Once the IR has a clear shot at space, the temperature of the atmosphere it is passing through doesn't matter.' The fool (and he is surely that) misinterprets "the layers from which" for "the layers through which". It is the temperature of gas from where the IR is shot into space that is crutial to the amount of IR energy cooling the planet. -
Letchim at 19:41 PM on 6 July 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
I don't have peer-reviewed articles but this video has some food for thought
James Hansen & Michael Shellenberger: Nuclear Power? Are Renewables Enough?
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michael sweet at 10:43 AM on 6 July 2019Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Penguin,
Your article claims that the concern about AGW started with Al Gore's movie An Inconvienent Truth in 2006. He apparently missed James Hansen's Senate testimony in 1989 that AGW was an incoming disaster. Lindon Johnson asked the National Academy of Science if AGW was a problem in 1965 and they replied that it would be a problem in 40 years or so. The first IPCC report was written in 1990!
The article claims that the CO2 absorbtion band is saturated. The probem here is the writer does not understand how the greenhouse effect works. At the surface the absorbtion band is saturated, everyone knows that. That does not matter. About 10 km up in the sky (30,000 feet) is the important area. At this height there is no water, only CO2. This is the escape altitude. Increased CO2 increases the escape altitude which warms the Earth. Read the OP for more information.
This dribble has been debunked many times. The author admits his ignorance when he claims no-one cared about AGW before 2006. The first IPCC report was written in 1990!!
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Penguin17935 at 07:54 AM on 6 July 2019Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Sorry - first post :-) didn't insert as link.. https://towerofreason.blogspot.com/2018/04/co2-is-not-driving-global-warming.html#comment-form
Thanks!
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Penguin17935 at 07:51 AM on 6 July 2019Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
What is the response to this article[ https://towerofreason.blogspot.com/2018/04/co2-is-not-driving-global-warming.html#comment-form ] reasoning that climate models do not correctly recognise the effects of increasing CO2 conentrations and that CO2 is not the main driver of climate changes?
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Wffrantz at 04:45 AM on 6 July 2019Models are unreliable
How reliable are IPCC 5th Assessment Predictions? Were they smarter than a 5th grader?
First the IPCC--Predictions are based on the assumption that CO2 is a primary driver of earth surface air temperatures. Because it has been extremely easy to to predict CO2 levels going forward from 2006, the baseline year for the IPCC 5th, the predictions would not have significantly changed if 12 years later, the actual CO2 levels were inserted (no assumptions) and the predictions recast. Given that, the average IPCC error from 2007 through 2018 was .14 degrees C.
5th Grader: Let's pick a panel of 5th grader that is smart enough to know that they have no clue as to what next years global earth temperature is going to be. So they decide to guess the prior years temperature. Given that, the average 5th Grader error from 2007 through 2018 was .07 degrees C--twice as accurate as the IPCC Model.
Here is the data.
IPCC 5th Model Errors Avg Abs Errors
Avg Err 0.072 0.145
Temperature Model Errors
Yr NASA IPCC No Idea Model
1970 (0.13)
…
2006 0.48 0.572007 0.44 0.58 0.04 0.14
2008 0.38 0.59 0.06 0.21
2009 0.47 0.62 0.08 0.15
2010 0.53 0.64 0.06 0.11
2011 0.45 0.65 0.08 0.20
2012 0.48 0.68 0.03 0.20
2013 0.50 0.74 0.02 0.23
2014 0.59 0.76 0.09 0.16
2015 0.71 0.75 0.12 0.05
2016 0.82 0.79 0.12 0.04
2017 0.72 0.80 0.11 0.09
2018 0.65 0.81 0.07 0.16
2019 0.83
Can it be argued that the 5th graders cheated by reassessing every year. Sure. But two facts do not change.
1) IPCC could have used actual CO2 data and not improved accuracy.
2) If physics is at all understood, any model based on sound physics should be able to beat the static forecast (e.g., a ball being thrown with elevation above ground being predicted).
Moderator Response:[DB] "Predictions are based on the assumption that CO2 is a primary driver of earth surface air temperatures"
You clearly didn't read the post. Models are built using physics and observations; predictions coming from them are an outgrowth of that. While imperfect, they are demonstrably reliable. The radiative physics of greenhouse gases like CO2 are well-researched, well-established and accepted by every international science body of note and by the petroleum extraction companies themselves.Simply making things, as you do, up is unhelpful. Please cite sources for claims, per the Comments Policy.
Inflammatory snipped.
Please limit image widths to 450.
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swampfoxh at 01:43 AM on 6 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
John Hartz. Well then, I take it all back. I did think it odd when you snipped my comment about AOC saying nothing new that hasn't been said by people with more gray hair. Since I don't have a party affiliation...the best that might be said is that I am a radical environmentalist, but I do find it odd that people fawn over this person who clearly offers northing new "under the sun". If that means to you I am trying to score political points, I would wonder whether you see that as points in favor of the Republicans or in the favor of the Democrats. Neither party appeals to me and I probably should add that I teach a class entitled "Origins of the American System of Government" at a colloge here in Central Virginia, and do so alongside the climate lecture titled: Climate Change: Impact of an Outlaw Species...one can quickly imagine whom is the outlaw species. Also, your management of this site has never been an issue for me, I was only growing tired of lengthly tomes of rhetoric that often seem not to tie the science with the solutions. My use of the term, Liberal Arts, to enclose non-science materials should not be viewed as pejorative, it might be that at my age, 75, I'm reflecting how we used to view much college curricula. Finally, the New Climate Research weekly listing are the best around and I thank you for those. You can imagine the flack I receive for my Climate Lecture...but those listings are "fingertip" rebuttals for some of the Denier materials I see every day. Thank You.
Moderator Response:[JH] For the record, DB snipped your comment about AOC saying nothing new that hasn't been said by people with more gray hair. He may snip it again. FWIW, I will celebrate my 76th birthday next week.
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campcarl at 00:14 AM on 6 July 2019Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019
Thanks for pointing out my mistake. I thought two of the authors were of a more reliable sort for quality work.
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kingster at 23:47 PM on 5 July 2019Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change
As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!
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bjchip at 16:24 PM on 5 July 2019Where to find big ideas for addressing climate change
I found this TED talk rather interesting in that context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
Alan Savory has a notion about stopping desertification. Looks useful.
Needs work to get it to happen though.
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Philippe Chantreau at 11:52 AM on 5 July 2019Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019
Agree with KR.
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KR at 11:08 AM on 5 July 2019Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019
campcarl - According to the abstract of that paper, they:
...investigate how introducing a potential iris feedback, the cloud-climate feedback introduced by parameterizing Cp to increase with surface temperature, affects future climate simulations within a slab-ocean configuration of the Community Earth System Model...
So they are running simulations with a postulated but unsupported iris feedback, a mechanism postulated by Lindzen many years ago in a series of debunked papers, and seeing how that affects a simplistic climate model.
I really don't see how that's particularly newsworthy.
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:04 AM on 5 July 2019Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019
According to the abstract, new modeling suggests that the precipitation efficiency in a higher temperature regime may be higher than has been assessed so far, and that a corresponding decrease in cirrus (high altitude, ice clouds) shielding of downwelling SW radiation could be a consequence of that, providing a positive feedback that could be significant, but it is a very tentative finding. The abstract concludes:
"These results suggest a potentially strong but highly uncertain connection between convective precipitation, detrained anvil cirrus, and the high cloud feedback in a climate forced by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations."
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campcarl at 07:16 AM on 5 July 2019Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019
"A Positive Iris Feedback: Insights from Climate Simulations with Temperature Sensitive Cloud-Rain Conversion"
This paper---which has topnotch authors---appears to have real importance to the public understanding of our climate future, and is thus newsworthy. Who is going to write a good review, that gives the full story and what it means?
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Jonas at 09:37 AM on 4 July 2019Skeptical Science New Climate Research for Week #26, 2019
Thanks again to the SkS team to continue the research list!!
I also like bringing the "opener" to the main SkS theme:
Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism ..
The categories bring interesting new aspects of viewing ..I highly value this hard work of viewing, filtering, prioritizing,
categorizing, doing .. this list is unique in the internet, afaik.
Deep bowing (will continue to donate/advertise as much
as possible/useful .. finite money/attention of people ..).Virtual hug to the whole team.
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John Hartz at 01:54 AM on 4 July 20192019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
Swampfox: If you are indeed looking for the latest information about the scientific research findings about climate science to to keep your lectures current, the SkS New Climate Research weekly listings are made to order. Given the content of your posts, I suspect that you are more interested in scoring politicl points than in learning about new scientific research.
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