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Comments 10651 to 10700:

10651. nigelj at 13:35 PM on 10 June 2019
       Effects of Global Warming
       

       Barry, you say that boron and gadolinium are "far more abundant" than hafnium" . A quick look at "abundance of earths elements in earths crust" on wikipedia shows that gadolinium and boron are about twice to three times more abundant than hafnium. I would not necessarily call that far more abundant, and whether they are in accessible sorts of places is another question. You also don't offer proof that boron and gadolinium are "abundant enough" to provide enough materials for a mass roll out of nuclear reactors ( at affordable cost obviously). It would need an in depth analysis of known reserves, and their accessibility and reactor requirements and you offer none of this.

       I think the point is we could discuss this it will probably go around in circles. If people object to Abbot's published research, and want to be taken seriously they should a) publish a proper peer reviewed opposing point of view or b) take up the offer made to submit a proper article to this website which should include references to source materials. The fact they do neither does not inspire one with great confidence.

       And I'm told a lot of rare earth materials are in China who could in theory restrict the supply. No doubt America has rare earths but it takes a very, very long time to develop new mines so this is not helpful for the climate problem. 

       I have no firm objection to nuclear power, and no technical expertise but I do know  the present water cooled technology has a lot of problems and new technology like molten salt lithium reactors remains experimental and is slow to develop, so our best bet in the meantime looks to be renewables. 

        

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Sigh, this is now way off-topic. Nuclear debates tend to derail other discussions and this one looks to be no exception. We have asked for nuclear proponents to write a guest post where such discussions could continue (which would need to discuss Abbott with peer-reviewed references) but so far no takers. If Doug C or barry want to volunteer then go for it.

       Meanwhile I suggest that nuclear power debates be taken to another more suitable forum. Bravenewclimate would seem to a more appropriate place.

10652. sailingfree at 12:34 PM on 10 June 2019
       Models are unreliable
       

       Dana's YouTube graphs are spectacular!

       I've been looking for such model comarisions that show years 2016, 2017, 2018 because most everthing I find is way out of date and shows the models being too high. I'd love to see those graphs directly on this site, since I'd rather use skepticalscience.com for a reference thanYouTube.

10653. barry17781 at 11:21 AM on 10 June 2019
       Effects of Global Warming
       

       Michael, 

       a Curie of high energy beta radiation, could you enlighten us at to what isotope do you refer to?

10654. barry17781 at 10:57 AM on 10 June 2019
       Effects of Global Warming
       

       michael sweet

       Abbot did a demostration paper it was not meant to be taken too literally, for example he mentions the limited abundance  of halfnium as a control (which is limited to military reactors) civilian reactors use boron and some gadolinium which are far more abundant than halnium, a completly irrelevant FACT that you should know.

       please put out the abbott reference so that others can judge it

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] The Abbott paper can be found here. What you mean by "demonstration" paper is unclear nor why you infer it was not meant to be taken too literally.

10655. scaddenp at 07:52 AM on 10 June 2019
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       ebelba - sorry for delay - no internet over weekend. Clouds are indeed one tough issue for feedback predictions. Clouds are both a positive and negative feedback depending on whether high or low. This is not well captured in climate models (cell size in models is too large for the processes involved) so figuring out how that would change with increasing water vapour is challenging. I am not aware that uncertainties for individual components have changed significantly since those published in Fig SPM.5 (see text for sources) of IPCC WG1 or table 8.6 in the main text. Chpt 8 has the main coverage of this. There has been a focus recently on trying to establish empirical constraints via paleoclimate archives and direct observations. For recent work, see for example Dessler and Forster 2018. For paleo, see say Hansen & Sato 2012. Their model/observation fit for a sensitivity around 3 impressed me.

       I dont think there is any escaping the problem that governments need to set policy despite stubborn uncertainties in the values of ECS; but need to do this on basis of a best estimates being close to 3.

10656. scaddenp at 07:24 AM on 10 June 2019
       Climate Change Denial book now available!
       

       joedg - the water goes into the sea. It is a component of sealevel rise.

       

10657. RedBaron at 06:44 AM on 10 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       @swampfoxh,

       You asked, "I don't get the points about c3 and c4 grasses nor the subordination of trees-to-grass as a less carbon effective sequesterer"

       Most trees and some grasses are C3. but warm season grasses are C4. Since the C4 pathway is at least 5-10 times more efficient at photosynthesis, those plants primary productivity of products of photosynthesis start out many times greater baring other limiting factors. One of the main limiting factors in temporate grasslands is winter. So the solution that evolution came up with is a biodiverse mix of C4 and C3 grasses and forbs that each have a season they are dormant and a season they become dominant or co-dominant. This extracts by far the most solar energy and converts the most CO2 to sugars and proteins as compared to the more primitive forest ecosystems. (temperate forests produce almost no photosynthesis from fall all the way through winter and early spring while grasslands do produce photosynthesis with C3 cool season grasses and forbs) So the grasslands start out by fixing much more CO2 to begin with.

       Then we consider where the bulk of that fixed carbon is stored. In a forest it is mostly stored above ground in woody biomass and leaves. A large amount is also stored in the top O-horizon of the soil. Almost all this stored carbon will ultimately be returned to the atmosphere as CO2 and methane by fire and/or the processes of decay though. A climate scientist would call this short cycle carbon. A soil scientist calls it labile organic matter. It really isn't sequestered long term in any geological timeframe. (or at least most of it isn't)

       In a grassland we have much more primary productivity, but much less biomass storage as compared to forests. So the century's old question became what happened to all the rest? We sort of knew somehow it ended up as soil, because grasslands soils, particularly the Mollic epipedon, are many many times thicker and hold hundreds of times more carbon than most forest soils per acre on average. (there are some notable exceptions) But even that didn't quite add up. This is where the new research is beginning to reveal these questions.

       What we term the LCP is actually a biochemical pathway whereby CO2 first becomes fixed by photosynthesis, then becomes stored in the plants as sugar rich compounds and basic proteins forming sap, then flows downward through root exudates to feed symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi in trade for weathered and scavenged nutrients otherwise not bioavailable to the plant, metabolised into soil glues called "glomalin" to form a network of structured tunnels and pore spaces in the soil, which ultimately forms humic polymers tightly bound to the soil mineral substrate that creates new fertile soil.

       Climate scientists call this sequestered long cycle carbon to differentiate it from short cycle stored carbon in woody biomass. According to Dr Christine Jones in total approximately 40% of the total products of photosynthesis can follow this pathway under appropriate conditions and as it decays into soil about ~79% +/- of that carbon stays put rather than returning to the atmosphere as CO2. (again under appropriate conditions) Soil scientists call this stable carbon. However, the products of photosynthesis that are used by the grass to make above ground biomass also decay right back into CO2 much like the forests' above ground biomass. That's the labile carbon again. Well over 90% of labile carbon returns to the atmosphere as CO2 and methane on average. (with a few notable exceptions)

       So it is critical to understand that difference between what soil scientists call labile carbon and stable carbon or what climate scientists call short cycle and long cycle carbon. Grasslands take hundreds of times more short cycle carbon and divert it to long cycle carbon as compared to most forests. (with a few notable exceptions)

       You then asked, "Also, what is the proportional value of phytoplankton in this "sequestration" activity? And what is the impact of the recent news that some 40% of phytoplankton have disappeared from the world's oceans since 1952?"

       Frankly this does actually scare me. As a retired marine engineer I know that anyone who fails to respect the power of the ocean risks death. ANYONE and EVERYONE. As a metaphor, you seriously do not want to be around when Poseidon releases the Kraken. As you can probably tell, this causes my normally rational brain to short circuit into irrational fear. And I seriously do love the ocean! But it is ingrained in me that much through many trials and tribulations that we are absolute fools to mess with the ocean ecosystems as we are currently. It's the one thing actually powerful enough to cause human extinction.

       Back to rationality for a second though. I am not a marine researcher. Once years ago as a marine engineer on a research vessel I rubbed elbows with marine researchers occasionally, but I am not nor ever have been a marine scientist of any sort, not even amateur. Given that, I'll tell you what I have read over the years. One of the key things to remember is that most the ocean sequestration is focused around shallow seas and coastal areas with saltwater marshes and mangrove forests sequestering from 50-90% of biomass into stable forms. This is indeed one of those notable exceptions mentioned above. Also it is 2 to 35 times more carbon sequestration than even deep ocean phytoplankton! 

       Understanding Coastal Carbon Cycling by Linking Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches

       Some of that carbon came from the upland grasslands too though. Because those humic polymers that are tightly bound to the soil mineral substrate will generally stay bound when the soil erodes and floods coastal areas then settle out as silts. 

       You asked, "are you taking the position that animals grazing the Great Plains helped create the soil there ?"

       Yes. A resounding unequivocal yes! They co-evolved and the animals are every bit as important as the microbiome and the plants.

       Now for agriculture we can mimic this relationship if we understand how it functions. A cow is not a bison nor an antelope, but if we manage it correctly we can mimic that ecosystem function and use it to create soil too. But in order to do that you must first understand the function of the vast herds in a grassland/savanna/open woodland biome. 

       "Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labor; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." Bill Mollison

10658. TVC15 at 02:24 AM on 10 June 2019
       Climate's changed before
       

       Hi MA Rodger @ 729

       I truly appreciate that response! I'm learning so much from your responses!

       However I don't know what you mean by this: 

       (but which does require millions of cubic kilometres of strategically-placed ice that would be difficult to miss)?

       Thank you!

10659. DPiepgrass at 01:40 AM on 10 June 2019
       Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
       

       It's not fair, either, to dismiss new nuclear power on the basis of two failed startups while ignoring all the other activity that is still going on. Among molten-salt reactor enthusiasts centered on Gordon McDowell, Kirk Sorenson et al., TransAtomic power wasn't given much attention and Kirk Sorenson viscerally rejected the travelling wave reactor design (the one promoted by Bill Gates), saying "it's just so darn hard!"

       I've been looking at MSRs for years with great interest. My favorite reactor designs right now are the Stable Salt Reactor by Moltex and the IMSR by Terrestrial Energy. I was a big fan of ThorCon - they have a great plan logistically speaking, but they require a generous regulatory environment to build their reactor (e.g. they seem to want to use uranium fuel enriched to 19.75% U-235 which is four times higher than most other reactors use, and they want a testing-based certification scheme rather than the traditional "prove it works on paper first to the eggheads in NRC" model)... I think it will be much harder to get the desired regulations than they seem to think.

10660. DPiepgrass at 01:13 AM on 10 June 2019
       Should a Green New Deal include nuclear power?
       

       What I hate about these discussions is that they assume the status quo must continue. "We can't have new nuclear plants until 2033" is a prediction purely based on the status quo - the current level of government support for nuclear power (tepid at best), the current regulatory structure in the US (which penalizes innovation), the current investor appetite (which of course is low if there are no carbon fees, only tiny subsidies for better nuclear technology, and no good supply chain for building reactors).
       
       If this were any other clean tech people would ask for more government support. But I don't think people realize that baseload is actually important, like, really.

10661. MA Rodger at 21:52 PM on 9 June 2019
       Climate's changed before
       

       TVC15 @728,
       This is probably not the answer you were expecting.
       You're asking about three seperate things, two of which are far from straightforward - ☻ The trigger that ended the last ice age, ☻ The melting of the Laurentide ice sheet and ☻ The Younger Dryas episode - and these  linked to some denialist argument which is not so evident.
       Thinking about the linkage to denialist argument:-
       Is it that it shows climate can change rapidly without humans emitting CO2 (but which does require millions of cubic kilometres of strategically-placed ice that would be difficult to miss)? Is it that we do not know exactly what happened 20k & 13k ago so how can we be sure about today (when we do see exactly what is happening today, or exactly-enough)?
       I have to say I cannot see how any denialist argument would begin to stand up.

       So what triggers a de-glaciation. Milancovitch cycles of course. But can you see these triggers. (Image from here.)
       
       The triggers aren't so obvious as the ice-age needs to be primed as well as triggered. Ice-ages used to occur every 40ky but over the last 1,000ky they last 100ky. (I think there's been some progress towards answering why - possibly more exposed bedrock.)
       And within ice-ages there are other events that still come with significant questions - Dansgaard–Oeschger events, Heinrich events and the Bølling-Allerød warming that immediately preceeded the Younger Dryas.

       While you asked for some reading, let's start with a 32-second video, the melt-out of the Laurentide ice-sheet.
       Note in the video the big lakes that build in the millennia before 13kybp. The initial take on the Younger Dryas was that it was the sudden draining of these lakes that caused the AMOC to collapse & precipitate the Yonger Dryas. But evidence for such an outflow remains elusive (the Wikithing references to a Mackenzie River outflow are Murton et al 2010 & Keigwin et al 2018), but some research suggests it has to be more complex than that.
       
       And in all that, there is the wonderous Impact Hypothesis (& apparently others according to Wikithing Younger Dryas page). So it all gets a bit heated at times, but probably not enough to melt out an ice sheet.

10662. swampfoxh at 20:32 PM on 9 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       RedBaron

       One more thing...are you taking the position that animals grazing the Great Plains helped create the soil there ? 

10663. swampfoxh at 20:04 PM on 9 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       RedBaron. I am familiar with EliofVA's treatment of emissions in the form of an economic perspective...we are personally acquainted. I am familiar with the role of A Miccorhizae's symbiosis with plants and it's participation in carbon sequestration, but I don't get the points about c3 and c4 grasses nor the subordination of trees-to-grass as a less carbon effective sequesterer...I hope I'm making sense, here...Also, what is the proportional value of phytoplankton in this "sequestration" activity? And what is the impact of the recent news that some 40% of phytoplankton have disappeared from the world's oceans since 1952?

10664. RedBaron at 18:18 PM on 9 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       @7 barry,

       I wrote this to help people understand Methane fuxes and how it relates to agriculture.

       What reaction can you do to remove methane?

       And I wrote this to take in the whole picture, including crop production and animal husbandry for ever major food system on the planet. There are a few minor gaps, but all the major food sources are covered worldwide.

       Can we reverse global warming?

10665. Fermin Francisco at 11:45 AM on 9 June 2019
       Introducing a new citizens initiative for carbon pricing in Europe
       

       A simpler way to involve companies and grassroots in global warming action is thru the profit motive.  For instance, Climate Funds may set up 'green entrepreneurship' programs that bring together producers of ethanol in Brazil, USA and India to design small to medium scale ethanol distilleries for the tropics, using sweet sorghum as feedstock.  The resultant schemes will attract entrepreneurs, co-ops and financiers in the tropics to set up the projects due to trust and feasibility, (producers can't go wrong) + Climate Funds' assistance, + profits above 50%.  The profit motive, which largely polluted our planet, can also clean it up!

10666. GrahamC at 10:02 AM on 9 June 2019
       It's magnetic poles
       

       Thanks for the replies.

       I have this 2017 article from Nature - Geological support for the Umbrella Effect as a link between geomagnetic field and climate by Kitaba et al which says:

       Recent palaeoclimatic research has revealed that geomagnetic polarity reversals coincided with climatic cooling. Two anomalous cooling events are observed during the Matuyama‒Brunhes and Lower Jaramillo geomagnetic reversals, which occurred ca. 780 ka and 1,070 ka, respectively, in palaeoclimatic records from Osaka Bay, southwest Japan. These cooling events cannot be explained by conventional Milankovitch theory and seem to have occurred across a widespread area in low- and mid-latitudinal regions, such as southeastern Siberia, Italy and Israel.

       That would seem to rule out pretty effectively that the current warming is due to weakening of the earth's magnetic field, wouldn't it?

10667. barry17781 at 08:20 AM on 9 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       RedBaron

       In grassland do you know what is the balance between the cattle emission and the sequestration of carbon. Methane is stil a minor greenhose gas as far as effect is concerned and is of short lifetime.

       Traditional cropping of wheat etc is known to cause erosion of soils and so loss of carbon capture potental and possibly a worse option than pastoralism. We have bean counters that only look at the emissions in agriculture and do not take in the whole picture - whichI suspect no one as yet knows

10668. michael sweet at 05:38 AM on 9 June 2019
       Effects of Global Warming
       

       DougC,

       Sorry I am late to your party, I was out of town.

       I seem to recall you posting pro nuclear propaganda a few month ago here.  Once again you are posting off topic so I cannot reread our previous discussion.  You seem to me to be repeating yourself which is prohibited by the comments policy.  Unfortunately, no nuclear supporters are  willing to write an OP in support of nuclear so you have to post off topic.

       Your posts contain too much that is patently false to address all your issues so I will summarize.

       Your discussion of nuclear does not include the vast areas needed as safety buffers around nuclear plants.  It has been calculated that as much as 22 km2 is required for each nuclear plant, far greater than your simple assertions. 

       Your assertions that energy density is required is simply false.  It has been widely demonstrated Jacobson 2018, Connolly et al 2016 , Aghahosseai et al 2019 (Aghahosseai has at least 20 references to other studies that provide 100% power using renewable energy) that renewable wind and solar power can easily power the entire economy for the entire world.  By contrast, Abbott 2012 demonstrated that the rare metals required for nuclear power stations do not exist.  Dittmar 2012, a widely respected nuclear physicist, states that any money spent on nuclear, including research, is wasted and should be spent on renewable energy instead.

       I am sick of your claims about radiation for these reasons:

       1. I never use the danger of radiation as a reason not to build nuclear because I know nuclear proponents do not care about the safety of reactors and it is a waste of time to bring up safety.
       2. I rarely hear others use arguments of safety as a primary reason not to build out nuclear.
       3. I have years of experience and extensive training handling high levels of radiation:  I have held a curie of high energy beta radiation in my unshielded hand (for those like you who do not know anything about radiation that is a very large amount of radiation).  What is your experience and training that allows you to lecture me about radiation safety?  Please do not say you read about it on the internet.
       4. Recent newspaper reports document scientists finding that large numbers of trace "not harmful" chemicals are damaging all of us.  Arguing that we should allow more radiation into the mix is insane.

       Your reference claims 10,000-30,000 reactors are needed to power the world.  Your number of 15,000 is low.  You should use at least 20,000.   Abbott 2012 gives 13 reasons why nuclear can never be built out to this extent.  Please say where you would locate the 4,000 reactors needed for the USA alone.  

       Your statement "wouldn't that require several trillion comparable renewable energy sources." is simply uninformed BS.  Jacobson 2018 calculates about 4 million total power systems, mostly wind and solar and an additional about 1 billion solar panels on houses and buildings.  Your estimate of "trillions" is off by a factor of millions and is deliberately false or deliberately uninformed.  Read the background so that you do not make these gross errors. 

       Why should I believe anything you say when you make gross, uninformed errors like this??

       The French Nuclear regulatory agency has stated that generation 4 reactors are no safer than current designs.  Your claims of safety are simply industry propaganda.  This applies to your claims of less expensive reactor enclosures.

       Alloys that can withstand the intensive neutron flux and the extraordinary corrosive environment of a liquid reactor for 40 years have not been identified.  The ability to clean up the waste stream from the liquid fuel has not been demonstrated at industrial scale.  Utill materials are found and techniques demonstrated the reactors cannot be constructed.  By the time these are demonstrated it will be too late.  We must build out non-carbon power now.

       Nuclear proponents complained about materials needed to build out renewable energy 10 years ago.  Jacobson 2011 details all the materials needed to power the entire world all power and showed that all materials except for rare earth elements needed for wind turbines exist.  Since then the turbines have been redesigned so they do not use rare earth elements.  

       By contrast, Abbott 2012 shows that rare metals needed for construction of nuclear power plants do not exist.   The nuclear industry has not challenged his papers so we must assume Abbott is correct. 

       We cannot do the materials comparison you demand because the data for nuclear plants does not exist to compare to the readily available data for renewables.

       I become angry when nuclear supporters make these fatuitous arguments and parrot industry propaganda unsupported by data.  Serious posters then doubt that renewable energy can generate enough energy when many peer reviewed papers clearly demonstrate renewable energy can generate enough power.  This is exactly the same technique fossil companies use to sow doubt in all efforts to deal with AGW.

10669. TVC15 at 05:13 AM on 9 June 2019
       Climate's changed before
       

       Hi again,

       I'm not sure where to post this but I think this might be the correct thread since it deals with past changing climate.

       I'm dealing with deniers who are questioning what caused the end of the last ice age and the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet?

       I came across this 2015 article with respect to the Laurentide ice sheet and wanted to know if there are other studies you can point me to.

       However with respect to the Younger Dryas I came across this: The Younger Dryas.

       For some reason the deniers seem to think these two events somehow "prove" that human caused global warming is a hoax generated to "take our money". 

       However these two events are not relevent to our current climate situation because we are not at the end of a glacial period.  

10670. Joedg at 04:53 AM on 9 June 2019
       Climate Change Denial book now available!
       

       Please help me understand....if the worlds ice flows are 35 percent less than they used to be, what happened to the water?  Where did it go?  That's a lot of water, no?

10671. MA Rodger at 01:25 AM on 9 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       Tom Janson @87,

       If you look (& the paper itself affords the best view) you will see that there is divergence, just not as much and as early as in the OP's figure 1. To quote from the paper:-

       "Despite their improved fidelity as hemispheric temperature surrogates, the current generation of tree-ring reconstructions also still show signs of the so-called ‘divergence problem’. This issue, which was first identified in Alaska and then subsequently at many boreal forest sites, refers to a loss of sensitivity exhibited by some temperature-limited tree-ring chronologies starting in the latter half of the 20th century. Filtering the three latest reconstructions to emphasize variability at decadal scales or longer does indeed show they do not track the sharp post-1990 increase in Northern Hemisphere temperatures, and it is evident even in the annual (unfiltered) series that the reconstructions reproduce (incorrectly) only modest warming during this interval (Fig.1b)"

       The caption for Fig 1b runs:-

       "The three state-of-the-art ‘tree-ring only’ paleo-temperature reconstructions (Schneider et al., 2015; Stoffel et al., 2015; Wilson et al., 2016) compared against mean June-July-August instrumental temperatures averaged over 30º-70ºN land areas (Harris and Jones, 2017)."

       And be aware that divergence is not a universal phenomenon but although it is wide-spread enough to appear in any reconstructions that span large areas.

       
       "The existence of the Divergence Problem (DP) is not spatially complete and appears to be more prevalent to some areas. ... Despite this apparent large-scale distribution of the phenomenon, at a site or regional level, the DP is not observed at all studied locations. Moreover, the current body of literature reveals that the DP does not exist at lower latitudes. Therefore, the DP should not be thought of as an endemic large-scale phenomenon with one overriding cause, but rather a local-to-regional-scale phenomenon of tree-growth responses to changing environmental factors including multiple sources and species-specific modification." Büntgen et al (2009)

10672. TomJanson at 23:13 PM on 8 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       How come the trees chart above doesn't show the divergence? 

10673. MA Rodger at 22:04 PM on 8 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       TomJanson @85,

       The early reconstructions of pre-1880 temperatures were indeed dependent on tree ring data. Groveman & Landsberg (1979) was entirely tree ring data with a reconstruction back to AD1579 while Bradley & Jones (1993) did also employ ice cores in reconstructions back to AD1400, as did the Hockey Stick iteself (Mann et al 1998). But things have moved on a lot since then with many other proxy types giving confirmation that the tree ring reconstructions are providing useful data. The graphic below is from PAGES2k Consortium (2017).

       

       The 'tree ring divergence problem' continues to be investigated but without resolution in sight. And those creating tree ring reconstructions are well aware of the issue. The tree ring reconstruction 'fit' to the instrument record is now a lot more impressive than that shown in the OP above. See for instance Fig 1b of St George & Esper (2019). (A rather tiny version of Fig 1 is below, 1a being the top graph.)

       

10674. TomJanson at 15:47 PM on 8 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       I have read the article above and had a look at some of the papers. I’m just not sure why the pre 1880 tree ring data should be considered so reliable if nearly half the tree ring data after 1880 isn’t reliable and we don’t really know why.

       as for the tree ring data being just one small piece, I thought it was quite important in producing the hockey stick? Without the trees is much more fuzzy isn’t it?

10675. Daniel Bailey at 11:26 AM on 8 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       Tree rings are a useful tool, both for the early 20th century (to help ground-truth the overlap period with the instrumental temperature record and to therefore give them weight for before that overlap period) and earlier.

       However, scientists have far more proxy records than just tree ring cores.  So the arsenal that scientists rely upon has many tools beyond just tree rings.

       Temperature measurements began in 1659. Stations were added throughout the centuries since then, becoming a truly global network beginning in 1850. Proxy records extend that record literally many hundreds of millions of years into the past.

       Have you read the OP and worked your way through the linked articles and everything discussed in the comments section here?  If not, why not?

10676. TomJanson at 11:03 AM on 8 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       If tree rings are only reliable for part of the instrumental record wht are they considered very reliable prior to the instrumental record?

10677. RedBaron at 07:40 AM on 8 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       @ELIofVA,

       You asked if it includes natural forest areas like your home in VA. The answer is that it includes the open woodland/ savanna biomes that have a grassland understory but not the closed canopy forests.

       This includes the other properties too. For example the grassland biome is also a net sink for methane, but a closed canopy forest is a net source for methane. However, the open woodland/ savanna is a net sink just like the open prairie.

       Your claim that there were no native grasslands in Virginia is demonstrably false. Indeed the whole Shenandoah valley contained many grassland biomes from from the well-known Big Meadows to smaller areas along stream banks and every changing and evolving successional states scattered throughout. Deer and bison are indeed native species to Virginia that only feed on low vegetation and are not found in closed canopy mature forest. And once before human impact, there were also mastodons who like elephants are an ecosystem engineer keeping vast areas in continual renewal by removing trees and brush.

       The ability to sequester carbon in large quantities is capable anywhere we do agriculture now + an addition bit in areas too degraded for agriculture now, but that were at one time capable of supporting a productive grassland before becomeing desertified by mankind.

       Biochar is certainly useful and I have done some trials with it too. It is much smaller than the LCP but in fact the "bio diversity" in healthy soil that biochar promotes includes AMF so I do see it as useful together.

       You said, "One theory about the Great Plains is that periodic natural fires created over long times charcoal giving it the black soil that holds biologicaly active carbon giving it fertility."

       Yes what you are refering to as "black soil" is actually a mollisol. There have been many theories about where that molic epipedon came from including the fire one you mentioned. None of the older theories quite added up though.

       The mollic epipedon is a key diagnostic epipedon in Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff 2010) and is recognized in many other soil classification schemes as black soil, Chernozems, chestnut soils, Brunizems, Phaeozems, and Kastanozems. The origin of the mollic epipedon is only partially understood; however, the relation between Mollisols and grassland or steppe has been recognized for more than a century (Shantz 1923). Soils containing a mollic epipedon are among the world’s most productive soils (Liu et al. 2012). The thickness and high soil organic carbon (SOC) contents of the mollic epipedon mean that these soils have sequestered large amounts of C over long periods of time. Mollic Epipedon

       Now we know what can sequester enough carbon to have made this vast mollic epipedon. It is indeed the glomalin producing EMF found in symbiosis with grasses, especially C4 grasses mixed with other grasses and forbs. In other words the vast prairies and also the savannas and open woodlands of temporate areas containing understory grasses.

       Fire certainly was a part of grasslands biomes especially when animals for some reason were too low in number to keep up with recycling the huge biomass produced annually. However, most that carbon gets returned to the atmosphere rather than creating new soil. We now know that theory was wrong and the black soils were mainly created by the LCP.

       Oh and BTW Glomalin itself is not permanent, although very stable with a 7-42 year 1/2 life in the top A horizons, and up to a 300 year 1/2 life in the deeper B horizons. However, the key difference is that when it finally does decay, it forms humic polymers that tightly bind to the soil mineral substrate instead of decomposing to CO2. (creates the mollic epipedon mentioned above) So while glomalin is not permanent, a high % (~78% iirc) of its carbon is sequestered into deep geological timeframes. (unless we disturb that land with the plow and agrochemicals)

10678. ebelba at 06:12 AM on 8 June 2019
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       I've read the 1984 paper and the Proistesescu paper and subsequently a bunch of abstracts of papers on the feedback roles of land cover and land use, albedo, etc. It appears that one area causing a dispersion of uncertainty is the role of cloud cover albedo feedback. Is there a single source you would recommend which puts confidence intervals around each of the remaining sources of uncertainty as well as ranks the robustness of the existing models in each area, such as climate+land use, climate+vegetative cover, climate+cloud cover albedo, etc.?

       thanks for your prior links, they were good starts.

10679. ELIofVA at 05:28 AM on 8 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       RedBaron:

       Getting the economic indicators to encourage the solution is key.  I would modify my above statement, "The only way to reduce atmospheric concentration is to reduces emissions from all sources to less than what can be sequestered from all sources (natural and human influenced).  Pricing carbon is the best way to motivate the economy.  I want to pay farmers for acieving net sequestration from activities such as reforesting as well as increasing carbon content in their soils.  Before any of these kinds of policies can be successful, their needs to be broad recognition in the public of this demand by nature.  

       In your discussion of the potential to store carbon in soils of grasslands, does this apply to areas that are naturally forest.  In my area of Virginia, grasslands (pastures and hayfields) only exist to serve an animal ag which is commonly sited for high emissions.  Do  you see a pathway to achieve net sequestration in grasslands to cover these other emissions?  My intuition is that your claimes mainly apply to areas where grassland is natural such as in the Great Plains of US and Canada.  I am studying your point that soil has enormous potential as a carbon sink.  The other question is how permanent the storage.  Is the Globulin you describe permanent?  I am an advocate for biochar because it is permanently sequestered carbon as opposed to biologically active organic material that holds carbon until it decomposes.  In a healthy soil, the bio diversity captures those emissions in other biology preventing emission to the atmosphere.  One theory about the Great Plains is that periodic natural fires created over long times charcoal giving it the black soil that holds biologicaly active carbon giving it fertility.  

10680. RedBaron at 02:26 AM on 8 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       @3. ELIofVA,

       I love the way you have set this up in a way that parallels economics. I strongly believe this is indeed the way to think about carbon and AGW! It took me a while to think of the problem in this way too, years ago. But once I did then it helped clarify my thought processes. I even took a university course on AGW to learn the proper jargon so I could communicate with climate scientists. As it turns out agricultural and soil science uses a different set of technical jargon than climate scientists which use a different set than economists! However, the thought process of all three are often parallel and only differ in terminology.

       There is one big flaw in your post though. You are thinking about the problem correctly but got your key terrestrial biome wrong. It is the  grasslands rather than the forests that are the key component to cooling the planet.

       Cenozoic Expansion of Grasslands and Climatic Cooling

       I would hate to see such a high quality way of approaching AGW mitigation fail simply because the wrong ecosystems were used. And not just that, but the wrong part of the carbon cycle itself. 

       So yes, I am behind you 100%. But the trick is the soil, not biomass. This means trees can help but they are not enough. They would reach biomass saturation long before actually reducing CO2 ppm in the atmosphere low enough to stop AGW. They could reduce the increase for a short while, but they are not a long term solution at all.

       On the other hand grassland restoration does not have this limitation because grasslands sequester CO2 differently both short term and long term.

       Right from the beginning grasslands start sequestering more CO2 because the C4 pathway is more efficient and productive than the C3 pathway.

       C4 carbon fixation - Wikipedia

       C4 metabolism originated when grasses migrated from the shady forest undercanopy to more open environments, where the high sunlight gave it an advantage over the C3 pathway.

       … Today, C4 plants represent about 5% of Earth's plant biomass and 3% of its known plant species. Despite this scarcity, they account for about 23% of terrestrial carbon fixation. Increasing the proportion of C4 plants on earth could assist biosequestration of CO2 and represent an important climate change avoidance strategy.

       But there is more to it than just the initial growth phase. Because grasslands also reach biomass saturation faster than forests too. What happens then is a little known and just recently discovered symbiosis between grasses and mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. It all started with a USDA soil scientist named Dr. Sara F. Wright and her discovery in 1996 of a glycoprotein produced abundantly on hyphae and spores of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soil, called Glomalin.

       Glomalin eluded detection until 1996 because, “It requires an unusual effort to dislodge glomalin for study: a bath in citrate combined with heating at 250 F (121 C) for at least an hour.... No other soil glue found to date required anything as drastic as this.” - Sara Wright.

       This was no small discovery, as it turns out that this glomalin producing, highly evolved, mutualistic, symbiotic relationship found between AMF and plants is the most prevalent plant symbiosis known, being found in 80% of vascular plant families in existence today. Dr. Wright had discovered the link between photosynthesis and fully 1/3 of the stored soil carbon.

       Glomalin: Hiding Place for a Third of the World's Stored Soil Carbon

       But it gets even better. Turns out that being a soil glue like substance, it also locks into the soil other organic substances, holding even more carbon.

       Glomalin is Key to Locking up Soil Carbon

       Glomalin: The Real Soil Builder

       Glomalin, the Unsung Hero of Carbon Storage

       Liquid carbon pathway unrecognised

       Little Known Glomalin, a Key Protein in Soils

       In other words it’s not just the glomalin itself, but rather this is just the missing link in a more extensive biochemical pathway that is an anabolic process, unlike the more well known decomposition of organic matter which is a catabolic process releasing CO2. It has long puzzled soil scientists how the processes of decay could actually at some point stop decaying into smaller and simpler humic substances, then begin to build larger and more complex stable carbon polymers and structures found in building new topsoil. There is still a lot to be researched, but we have found that pathway! The anabolic processes start with AMF which uses those root exudates to provide the energy to combine glomalin with products of decay as building blocks for the stable carbon soil creation process.

       Remember too, once biomass saturation is reached an increasingly higher % of the products of photosynthesis are pumped into the soil via this newly discovered liquid carbon pathway (LCP).

       Carbon sequestered deep in the soil profile has 3 main advantages over biomass carbon.

       1. It is safe from forest fires and grass fires. Fires send the biomass carbon right back into the atmosphere. Little if any long term sequestration.
       2. The soil sink size is larger than all the atmospheric CO2 and biomass CO2 combined. There simply isn’t enough atmospheric CO2 to saturate the soil sink. It’s that large.
       3. We have to repair our degraded soils anyway so that agriculture can continue. So it kills 2 birds with one stone. SOS: Save our Soils Dr. Christine Jones Explains the Life-Giving Link Between Carbon and Healthy Topsoil

       Since we really do have to do it anyway and soon, there really is no excuse.

       Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues

       There is no free lunch. So yes, we still need solar energy, windmills, nuclear where appropriate and safe, hydroelectric and geothermal just to name a few. However, we certainly do not need to eliminate fossil fuels completely, just use them more wisely.

       Executive summary:

       Yes we can reverse Global Warming.

       It does not require huge tax increases or expensive untested risky technologies.

       It will require a three pronged approach worldwide.

       1. Reduce fossil fuel use by replacing energy needs with as many feasible renewables as current technology allows.
       2. Change Agricultural methods to high yielding regenerative models of production made possible by recent biological & agricultural science advancements.
       3. Large scale ecosystem recovery projects similar to the Loess Plateau project, National Parks like Yellowstone etc. where appropriate and applicable. So yes a few trees can help here.
10681. ELIofVA at 01:01 AM on 8 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       To say the increase in concentration is flat means the rate of increase is not accelerating.  In my own effort to project future concentrations with business as usual (2ppm/year), the concentration still rises, even if the rate of increase remains flat.  This reminds me of the debate about US government debt.  If the rate of the increase was in decline, they would say the annual deficit was declining, even though the accumulative debt was still rising. For a short time in 2000, the US actually had a surplus.  However, the overall accumulated debt did not go down.  It was still there.  That is why I promote using financial metaphor for considering CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.  When emissions (expenses) exceed income (sequestration) the difference is made up with loans (debts).  The annual imbalance between emissions and sequestrations determine if atmospheric concentrations go up or down.  The ONLY way to lower concentration is to reduce emissions below the amount that can be sequestered with the difference subtracted from atmospheric concentration (payment on debt).  Sequestration (Income) can be increased by reforestation and possibly geoengineering.  Although the net sequestration by nature will likely be our primary income for a long time.  When people recognize net emissions as a debt, they will recognize the need to repay the debt by reducing emission to less than what can be sequestered.  Treating emissions as free and unlimited in the econmy is leading us to a violent outcome.  

       Graphs above looked very interesting.  Unfortunately, in my Chrome browser, I could not see the whole graph in a single image, requiring scrolling to see the scales.  This made them difficult to read.  Please consider displaying whole graph as single image.  Otherwise, the info on the website is very much appreciated.  

10682. Daniel Bailey at 00:11 AM on 8 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       I think the article and the comments in the discussion thread here sum up things pretty well:

       • There is a divergence after 1960 or so
         
         
       • It's not a big deal (because we have the very reliable instrumental temperature record)
         
         
       • Reconstructions with tree ring data agree well with those without tree ring data (before 1960)

       
       Much ado about not much at all.

10683. TomJanson at 23:39 PM on 7 June 2019
       Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
       

       The relationship between temperature and tree rings seems quite complex. It doesn’t sound like anyone can properly explain the divergence problem. So how come climate scientists are so confident that past tree ring data is reliable?

10684. nigelj at 18:35 PM on 7 June 2019
       Climate Change vs Cosmological Catastrophe
       

       I have a similar reaction that the end of world scenario in the video is a bit irrelevant to the climate issue and beyond our control, however here is something of general interest that I just find personally intriguing: 20 ways the world could end.

10685. nigelj at 12:43 PM on 7 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       OPOF, that CO2 chart is very illuminating, and yes  yearly atmospheric C02 growth rates typically increased after 2011. If you look at trends of emissions they underwent an obvious increase in the rate after 2000 due to an increase in use of oil and coal here, (in Asia I think) so presumably the increase in the yearly rate of atmospheric growth rates from 2011 is a delayed response to this?

       Although yearly rate of atmospheric growth rates changed after 2011, If you take the years 2012 - 2018, and adjust 2015 and 2016 down to say 2.4 to reflect the fact they were in the middle of a big el nino (just a guesstimate on my part), then the trend across the whole period is about 2.2 on average, and fairly flat looking. So this might be a good sign that rates of use of fossil fuels are at least not accelerating since 2012, so far anyway.

10686. One Planet Only Forever at 12:27 PM on 7 June 2019
       Climate Change vs Cosmological Catastrophe
       

       Nobody should concern themselves with something that cannot be influenced by collective human actions.

       It is more terrifying that correction resistant Leaders are still incorrectly Winning support more than 30 years into the improving well established Climate Change understanding.

       Leaders are undeniably aware that the incremental impact of everyone who uses fossil fuel accumulates into long-lasting massive future harm and that fossil fuel use creates no lasting benefits (in many cases no benefits beyond the moment of their use).

       What is most terrifying is that developed popularity and profitability also develops powerful resistance to correction.

       Without changing the systems humans have developed into systems atht actually govern and limit human activity to minimize harmful actions and maximize helpful actions, humanity will fail to develop a better future.

       People can be easily impressed by new technological toys, that are also likely to be harmfully unsustainable activities, into believing that things are getting better when the opposite is more likely the reality.

       The real terrifying thing is how harmful the thinking of people in supposedly more advanced nations can actually be.

       Everybody should be terrified by how correction resistant many supposed winners/leaders are, and the unjust popularity and profitability they can get through misleading marketing.

10687. AristotleM at 10:51 AM on 7 June 2019
       If growth of CO2 concentration causes only logarithmic temperature increase - why worry?
       

       Download the excel data and view the chart...that's not a linear relationship. The graph looks to me like a snapshot of a logarithmic curve.

       
       I'm also confused about the Cumulative emissions: how do we know how much CO2 man's activities added to the total, and how much was due to natural sources, like volcanic activity, respiration, or organic decomposition? Why is it being expressed as a cumulative figure, when we know CO2 is absorbed by some things (like plants) and can be separated into its constituent components by natural energy releases at ambient temperatures...like a lightning storm on a warm evening.

       Also, the emissions are expressed in GtC...Gigatonnes of Carbon. Don't we weight things using an independent standard...like Newtons, Grams...or Pounds? The GtC scale implies that we're only interested in the carbon...which is only part of the CO2 molecule and only 1 of 2 components (one of C & one of O2) and it’s not the heaviest of them. Oxygen is 25% heavier than Carbon...and there are two oxygen atoms per CO2 molecule. Of any amount of CO2, the portion of carbon would be 27.2% of the total...more than a quarter, less than a third. Is the graph saying that the temperature rise between freezing and 5 C (41 F) is the result of accumulating 9191 Gigatonnes of CO2? Has there ever been that much CO2 in the atmosphere at once? Ever?

       Moderator Response:

       [TD] For the airtight evidence that humans are responsible for 100% of the recent rise of the CO2 level in the atmosphere, see the post How Do Human CO2 Emissions Compare to Natural Emissions? There are multiple lines of evidence, but all you really need is the one that relies only on algebra.

10688. scaddenp at 10:07 AM on 7 June 2019
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       ebelba - doubling CO2 by itself gives an extra 4W/m2 (your equation) to surface of the earth and that corresponds to ~1.1C increase in global temperature. All of the rest of temperature increase is due to feedbacks as you outlined which is why climate models are so complex and why the range of climate sensitivity estimates is so large.

       The IPCC WG1 report, starting with the technical summary, is quite definitely the best place to start getting an education because you can go from technical summary to full report and from there down into the referenced papers.

       The 1984 "Climate Sensitivity: Analysis of feedback mechanisms" is now dated but not a bad starting point as well. Check out the more recent Proistosescu and Huybers though.

10689. One Planet Only Forever at 09:16 AM on 7 June 2019
       State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019
       

       A related important data set is the atmospheric CO2 concentration values.

       The presentations of information for CO2 compiled by NOAA include the following about the "Annual Mean Global Carbon Dioxide Growth Rates".

       What is glaringly obvious, and cause for concern, is that the growth rates since 2011 have exceeded 2.0 ppm. In the set of earlier years there were some years over 2.0 ppm growth. But they were interspersed with rates well below 2.0 ppm growth.

       So far in 2019 the average of CO2 monthly increases also exceeds 2.0 ppm.

       I wonder of the 'Business as Usual' case that is often talked about needs to be updated to reflect the reality that 'Increase of Harmful Business has been Becoming More Usual'. That update would result in even higher temperature increases in the nearer and distant future due to more rapidly increased CO2 levels than the apparently outdated 'Business as Usual' case.

10690. ebelba at 07:28 AM on 7 June 2019
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       PS I noticed you folks are typing quite lengthy responses and spending a lot of time answering a lot of (some quite silly) people with much more patience than I would have with such people. A simple link to read a paper or two would be fine. Math and statistics is not a problem, these are my fields of education, but I have not read much climate science and would like to. Just need a good place to start and I can follow bibiliographies from there. Thanks again.

10691. ebelba at 07:04 AM on 7 June 2019
       Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
       

       I think I understand the spectrum graphs and the role of CO2 in the outer layers and the sensitivity to the CO2 concentration relative to the base level in the simple model. My question is: as the global mean temp rises, and water vapor rises, and polar ice cap coverage decreases, a number of things change. Surface reflection changes, ice reflects whereas open ocean absorbs; water vapor convection and absorption change. Is there an equation equivalent to the 5.35 ln (C/C_0) equation with additional terms for these effects? Or is that equation already based on a models which already have these additional feedback effects? Thanks.

10692. scaddenp at 07:02 AM on 7 June 2019
       It's magnetic poles
       

       The Kerton argument is obviously codswallop but I have also heard (only once), the suggestion that the weakening of the magnetic field was producing via <unknown physics>, a effort on climate that all of man's ingenuity at measuring physical parameters had somehow missed. However, the lack of evidence for any change in glacial extent associated with the last polar reversal (when magnetic field strength became very weak) is a strong counter-argument.

10693. MA Rodger at 02:06 AM on 7 June 2019
       It's magnetic poles
       

       The full text of the article cited at the top of the [absent] OP is available on-line -  Kerton AK (2009) 'Climate Change And The Earth’s Magnetic Poles, A Possible Connection'. The bold assertion is that the alleged correlation between global temperature & both change in longitude & latitude of the magnetic North Pole cannot be conicidence. Yet I feel the numbers presented for this change in longitude/latitude is today evidently arrant codwallop. The source cited is from Kyoto University which is showing latitudinal movement in the Magnetic North Pole peaked in 2005 and is now stopped and about to begin to decrease. And the increase in longitude peaked a couple of years bac, but that is purely due to the Magnetic Pole passing close to the rotational North Pole where longitude is rather dense. The link provides this graphic:-

       

       And this is just the northern Magnetic Pole. The northern Geomagnetic Pole is much less cooperative and the sothern equivalents of both would need some serious explaining-away by anybody advocating a link between the northern pole-monement and global or hemispherical temperature.

       Sadly, there are other attempts to be found that are trying to breathe life into this dead parrot.

10694. Daniel Bailey at 01:00 AM on 7 June 2019
       It's magnetic poles
       

       Besides the obvious, that air is not ferrous, here's what I have:
       
       Scientists understand that the human impacts on the Earth, it's temperature and its climate are the dominant impacts because scientists have thoroughly studied all of the factors capable of forcing the observed changes since preindustrial times.

       

       While the Earth's magnetic axis is shifting somewhat, Earth's rotational axis shifts only a little bit, mostly in response to the mass redistribution of water around the Earth from land-based ice sheet losses. This is a normal response.
       
       

       The net change in the position of the Earth's rotational axis is about 37 feet. The largest annual change is about 7 inches.

       If you move over 37 feet, the climate doesn't change. It changes even less per year if you only move 7 inches.

       https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6332

       The research paper itself is here:

       https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/e1501693

       Supportive article 1

       Supportive article 2

       Supportive article 3

        

       While the Earth's magnetic field is weakening a bit and its magnetic axis is shifting somewhat, magnetic field polarity changes have no effects on climate on the timescale of human lifetimes because air isn’t ferrous. The effects on hand-held compasses are insignificant. For purposes of electronic navigation, changes in the position of the magnetic poles are constantly updated in navigational databases.

       https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/tracking-changes-earth-magnetic-poles
       https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/world-magnetic-model-out-cycle-release
       https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml
       https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/faqgeom.shtml
       https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/position-of-magnetic-north-pole-officially-changed

       "The last time that Earth's poles flipped in a major reversal was about 780,000 years ago, in what scientists call the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal. The fossil record shows no drastic changes in plant or animal life. Deep ocean sediment cores from this period also indicate no changes in glacial activity, based on the amount of oxygen isotopes in the cores. This is also proof that a polarity reversal would not affect the rotation axis of Earth, as the planet's rotation axis tilt has a significant effect on climate and glaciation and any change would be evident in the glacial record."

       And

       "The science shows that magnetic pole reversal is – in terms of geologic time scales – a common occurrence that happens gradually over millennia. While the conditions that cause polarity reversals are not entirely predictable – the north pole's movement could subtly change direction, for instance – there is nothing in the millions of years of geologic record to suggest that any of the 2012 doomsday scenarios connected to a pole reversal should be taken seriously."

       https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-poleReversal.html
       https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/news-articles/earths-magnetosphere

       "What would happen if the magnetic field of the Earth suddenly changed?

       Magnetic field wandering would let the aurora borealis occur at any latitude, but other than that there would be no noticeable effects other than changes in the amount of cosmic rays that penetrate to the ground. Even this effect is minimal because we can visit the Arctic and Antarctic and only receive a slight increase in cosmic rays. So long as the strength of the field remains high during this field wandering event, the effects should be pretty benign."

       https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q279.html

       https://www.livescience.com/18426-earth-magnetic-poles-flip.html

       "one total bonus of having a weaker magnetic field is that auroras will be visible from much lower latitudes, so the nighttime skies will be even more epic"

       https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/earth-magnetic-field-flip-north-south-poles-science/

       (-technical, non-climate discussion on geodynamics here-)

       Apart from the potential light shows, no credible effects on climate on the timescale of human lifetimes.  Scientists have this one covered.

       Climate Forcings:

       Changes in the sun's output falling on the Earth are about 0.05 Watts/meter squared.

       By comparison, human activities warm the Earth by about 2.83 Watts/meter squared (AR5, WG1, Chapter 8, section 8.3.2, p. 676).

       What this means is that the warming driven by the GHGs coming from the human burning of fossil fuels since 1750 is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval.

       

       https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/#fig-2-3

       It's not magnetic field changes or the sun or natural cycles.

       It's human activities, primarily driven by the human burning of fossil fuels.

       Period.

10695. GrahamC at 21:06 PM on 6 June 2019
       It's magnetic poles
       

       I could really use some help in arguing against this myth at the moment. Are there any plans for the page to be completed?

10696. Doug_C at 02:27 AM on 6 June 2019
       Effects of Global Warming
       

       ianw01 @15

       It's not good here.

       Although we've had a carbon tax for over a decade in BC, it is next meaningless when the government gives exemptions to some of the largest CO2 emitters.

       John Horgan offers tax break incentives to $40B Kitimat LNG project

       How exactly are we addressing fossil fuel driven climate change when official policy at the highest level is effectively paving the way for decades more fossil fuel extraction and burning at a massive level.

       In BC it gets ever worse than that, the Site C dam has been controversial for decades yet with no real approval process taken a massive hydro-electric project that will cost the people of BC over $10 billion will be built in the middle of the Montney gas formation that will be used to power gas gracking for decades.

       This will produce trillions of cubic meters of gas and leak large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Fracking itself endangers ground water and destabilizes the bedrock over large areas producing greatly increased sesmic activity.

       Then is no rationality at all in energy policy in BC or anywhere in Canada. The entire nation has become captured by the fossil fuel sector. Instead of debating how to get off all fossil fuels as quickly as possible we're fighting over where to ram new oil and gas pipelines through and even "Green" leaders are claiming Canada must utilize our fossilf fuel reserves for decades more.

       Which was the same argument decades ago when climate change was first recognized as an existential threat. The claim here is that because Canada is only responsible for about 2% of the world's CO2 emission we can keep doing what we want and no one will notice.

       But Canada makes up about 1% of the global population so on an individual level Canadians are some of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide.

       We have a lot of room to change and little political will to actually do so despite all the virtue-signalling of Justin Trudeau who said this at the Paris climate change summit in 2015.

       'Canada is back, my friends. Canada is back, and here to help,' prime minister tells delegates

       He then went to an oil and gas symposium in Houston Texas and said this to oil execs.

       No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there,

       I'm ashamed to say that Canada as a nation is not going to be part of a solution to this existential crisis we have forced ourselves into by blind greed.

10697. ianw01 at 01:46 AM on 6 June 2019
       Effects of Global Warming
       

       Doug_C @ 8: Speaking of cognitive dissonance, let's not omit BC's continued enthusiasm for coal mining and export: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/yes-anti-pipeline-vancouver-really-is-north-americas-largest-exporter-of-coal 

10698. MA Rodger at 18:28 PM on 5 June 2019
       Effects of Global Warming
       

       William @9,

       Picking up on your "what are we going to call the 2.75 million year period" question, I'm not sure what prompted it. Your preceeding sentences sound perhaps a bit accusative and if so, perhaps you mis-read the OP that actually mentioned "cold periods (so called Ice Ages)" over the past 800,000 years.

       The period prior to the Holocene and back +2½million years does have a name, the Pleistocene and it is a period of 'ices ages' and 'interglacials'. The characteristic that makes it different to the periods before was the preceeding formation of the Panama Ismuth and the subsequent arrival of (or perhaps the more extensive arrival which Knies et al 2014[PDF] appears to show) permanent polar ice in the Northern Hemesphere, particularly the Arctic Sea Ice. In light of the permanence of NH ice through the Pleistocene (it apparently didn't disappear in the Eemian, for instance see Stein et al 2017) I think the arrival of ice-free Arctic summers for the first time in millions of years is a strong scientific message that has yet to be wielded properly.

10699. scaddenp at 12:43 PM on 5 June 2019
       CO2 is just a trace gas
       

       Not sure that "emitting particle" is right, but radiation spectrum is absolutely dependent on temperature. And, yes, you can use the theory to predict spectrum of radiation at TOA or at surface of earth, or by how much the spectrum should change if you increase say CO2 from 400 to 440ppm. These have all been done (eg here) and predictions match observations with exquisite accuracy (a fair bit of advanced tech depend on these equations being correct).

10700. Rovinpiper at 12:33 PM on 5 June 2019
       CO2 is just a trace gas
       

       I see.
       
       So, tell me. Doesn't the spectrum of emitted radiation depend on the temperature of the emitting particle?

       If that is the case, then doesn't it provide a pretty convenient test of this theory? 

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