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Doug_C at 14:09 PM on 1 February 2019A Green New Deal must not sabotage climate goals
michael sweet @4
Not at all, I'm saying that in earlier attempts to have an in depth discussion of nuclear power I've been instructed by moderation that it was taking the discussion off topic.
What really needs to be said about nuclear power that is needed to convince anyone of its utility as part of a new energy model that is free of fossil fuels?
To be clear, I'm not advocating for a large scale expansion of Pressurized and Boiling Water(PWRs & BWRs) nuclear power plants which are wasteful of fuel, have faulure mechanisms that cannot be 100% addressed and produce large amounts of very long lived waste some of it transuranic actinides like Plutonium that need to be safely stored for thousands of years.
I do however support investment in develping the kind of molten salt reactors pioneered at ORNL in the 1950s and 60s that can run on both the uranium and thorium fuel cycles. Thorium 232 being a fertile not fissile material needs to be transmuted into U-233 to be then used as fuel in a slow neutron reactor is far more proliferation tolerant than uranium as it is many neutron captures away from weapons grade Pu-239 not the one of U-238. And if you pull U-233 out of a running molten salt reactor that is breeding its own fuel it will cease to function. The break even is almost identical in neutrons released by fission in the reactors and the neutrons needed to maintain the fission and breed new fuel.
Molten salt reactors also offer advantages not available with PWRs and BWRs as they cannot melt down - molten salt core with U-233 in solution - a two stage Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor(LFTR) would utilize almost 100% of input fuel while uranium cycle PWRs and BWRs currently utilize less than 1% of input fuel. Nuclear poisons like Xenon-135 can be removed instream while the reactor is running as can useful medical isotopes like Technetium-99m, Iodine-131 and Bismuth-213. Any moderate scale implementation of LFTRs would mean an end to any shortages of material for nuclear medicine which is very important in imaging and cancer treatment currently.
As they run at high temperatures compared to PWRs and BWRs and near atmospheric pressures, LFTRs have a much higher thermal efficiency, do not need massive secondary containment and can also be used for things like salt water desalination after heat has been pulled off for the power loop. Which can be run by far higher efficiency Brayton Cycle gas generators.
Because of their nature LFTRs can be built in flexible modular design and placed in locations that would never be suitable for PWRs and BWRs. Current interest in LFTRs was started by NASA looking at nuclear power generation on the Moon for instance where water would not be available for moderation, cooling and heat transfer to the generation loop. Cooling would be done with a radiation fin alone.
As for the safety factor of nuclear power, I find it quesitonable that the Linear No Threhold(LNT) model of biological risk from exposure to ionizing radiation is accurate as the biological response to ionizing radiation does not seem to be linear.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3258602/
"The concept of DNA “repair centers” and the meaning of radiation-induced foci (RIF) in human cells have remained controversial. RIFs are characterized by the local recruitment of DNA damage sensing proteins such as p53 binding protein (53BP1). Here, we provide strong evidence for the existence of repair centers. We used live imaging and mathematical fitting of RIF kinetics to show that RIF induction rate increases with increasing radiation dose, whereas the rate at which RIFs disappear decreases. We show that multiple DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) 1 to 2 μm apart can rapidly cluster into repair centers. Correcting mathematically for the dose dependence of induction/resolution rates, we observe an absolute RIF yield that is surprisingly much smaller at higher doses: 15 RIF/Gy after 2 Gy exposure compared to approximately 64 RIF/Gy after 0.1 Gy. Cumulative RIF counts from time lapse of 53BP1-GFP in human breast cells confirmed these results. The standard model currently in use applies a linear scale, extrapolating cancer risk from high doses to low doses of ionizing radiation. However, our discovery of DSB clustering over such large distances casts considerable doubts on the general assumption that risk to ionizing radiation is proportional to dose, and instead provides a mechanism that could more accurately address risk dose dependency of ionizing radiation."
Which means the main threat of nuclear power - exposure to ionizing radiation - is not the linear to zero threat it has been treated as from the start.
In fact there are preliminary results that would seem to indicate that exposure to ionizing radiation within a certain threshold may have a positive health benefit. As the US Navy found with its Nuclear Shipyard Workers Study that was implemented after anecdotal evidence of a link between workers exposed to activated steel producing cobalt-60 having higher rates of leukemia.
Although the study was never published as it found no links to leukemia from exposure to slightly higher levels of gamma radiation, the results did show a significantly lower mottaility in the nuclear worker cohort as compared to the non-nuclear workers.
http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/low-dose-NSWS-shipyard.pdf
"Abstract: This paper is a summary of the 1991 Final Report of the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study (NSWS), a very comprehensive study of occupational radiation exposure in the US. The NSWS compared three cohorts: a high-dose cohort of 27,872 nuclear workers, a low dose cohort of 10,348 workers, and a control cohort of 32,510 unexposed shipyard workers. The cohorts were matched by ages and job categories. Although the NSWS was designed to search for adverse effects of occupational low dose-rate gamma radiation, few risks were found. The high-dose workers demonstrated significantly lower circulatory, respiratory, and all-cause mortality than did unexposed workers.
Mortality from all cancers combined was also lower in the exposed cohort. The NSWS results are compared to a study of British radiologists. We recommend extension of NSWS data from 1981 to 2001 to get a more complete picture of the health effects of 60Co radiation to the high-dose cohort compared to the controls."Then there's the fact that as organisms we like everything else are radioactive;
https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/faqradbods.html
"All of us have a number of naturally occurring radionuclides within our bodies. The major one that produces penetrating gamma radiation that can escape from the body is a radioactive isotope of potassium, called potassium-40. This radionuclide has been around since the birth of the earth and is present as a tiny fraction of all the potassium in nature.
Potassium-40 (40K) is the primary source of radiation from the human body for two reasons. First, the 40K concentration in the body is fairly high. Potassium is ingested in many foods that we eat and is a critically important element for proper functioning of the human body; it is present in pretty much all the tissues of the body. The amount of the radioactive isotope 40K in a 70-kg person is about 5,000 Bq, which represents 5,000 atoms undergoing radioactive decay each second."
Ionizing radiation in any amount stops seeming a threat when it is understood that we are constantly exposed to ionzing radiation from within and like every other organism on the planet have evolved mechanisms to not just deal with this but quite possibly use it to our benefit.
Which us why I commented that the risk of nuclear power is often misrepresented often to highly unreasonable levels.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world
And while Acute Radiation Syndrome is a concern, it is very rare in association with nuclear power. And it is also not an automatic death sentence as conventional "wisdom" by some would have us believe.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18049222
"Abstract
The Chernobyl accident resulted in almost one-third of the reported cases of acute radiation sickness (ARS) reported worldwide. Cases occurred among the plant employees and first responders but not among the evacuated populations or general population. The diagnosis of ARS was initially considered for 237 persons based on symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Ultimately, the diagnosis of ARS was confirmed in 134 persons. There were 28 short term deaths of which 95% occurred at whole body doses in excess of 6.5 Gy. Underlying bone marrow failure was the main contributor to all deaths during the first 2 mo. Allogenic bone marrow transplantation was performed on 13 patients and an additional six received human fetal liver cells. All of these patients died except one individual who later was discovered to have recovered his own marrow and rejected the transplant. Two or three patients were felt to have died as a result of transplant complications. Skin doses exceeded bone marrow doses by a factor of 10-30, and at least 19 of the deaths were felt to be primarily due to infection from large area beta burns. Internal contamination was of relatively minor importance in treatment. By the end of 2001, an additional 14 ARS survivors died from various causes. Long term treatment has included therapy for beta burn fibrosis and skin atrophy as well as for cataracts."The primary cause of death with emergency responders at the Chernobyl reactor accident was from infection in 3rd. degree beta burns. And while there are serious health issue with survivors, many were still alive decades later.
To sum up my position on nuclear power of certain types.
- Thorium has an energy denisty of more than 1 million times coal. A lump of thorium that fits within your hand could provide all the energy you need in a lifetime.
- Modern reactor designs are far more safe and efficient than older designs.
- They provide benefits such as an endless supply of medical isotops that would likely result in a revolution in nuclear medicine.
- LFTRs produce far less transuranic actinides and most of the fission products that remain after the original fuel is consummed have decayed to ground state within a decade leaving a little over 10% of the waste needing to be stored long term. This in a reactor design that will produce about 1% of waste as current reactors.
- Thorium is in the same abundance as lead.
- If we choose to utilize uranium in fast spectrum molten salt reactors we can burn up all the current high level nuclear waste and have a virtually unlimited supply of fuel as the oceans contain about 4.5 billion tons of uranium before we even look at terrestrial reserves. This comes with the proliferation risk of producing large amounts of Pu-239.
A new family of absorbents is being developed to efficiently extract uranium from sea water.
https://www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/purl/1234340
To be clear, I'm not advocating the implementation of nuclear power over other low carbon sources of energy.
I think we need to develop everything we can because the next few decades are going to be a challenge that is going to require innovation and flexibility that leaves no room from political agendas and poorly implemented science such as with the LNR which is almost certainly inaccurate and yet remains the main plank of opposition to nuclear power as it presents ionizing radiation as a health risk down to a level of zero. A factor that is present in all our lives at varying rates.
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A Green New Deal must not sabotage climate goals
Doug_C - Nuclear has some enticing possibilities, but there are some difficult to balance issues. Molten salt reactors are quite safe and self-limiting compared to light water reactors, but that tech hasn't been fully developed. Molten salt and micro-reactors are promising, but the development cycle time for large scale nuclear plants is daunting. We would have to choose between the once-through fuel cycle we currently use, leaving >95% of the uranium unburned and left as highly radioactive waste (and five us <100 years in supply), or reprocess it and risk large quantities of plutonium being available (which is much much easier to create a nuclear device from). The build time and cost of a (potentially) commercially viable reactor seems to require ~1GW scales, and that's really difficult on any short term scale.
Renewable wind/solar, on the other hand, are becoming one of the least expensive power production tools available due to price drops, have few and small scale long term pollution issues, and perhaps most importantly can be developed incrementally - adding a few hectares of panels or tens of windmills at a time. And that makes financing for renewables (pardon me) a breeze.
I jjust don't know if nuclear works out as viable, when considered as a system.
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1934 - hottest year on record
Eclectic - I think Hansen and Lebedeff 1987 really answered the basic infill question, testing temperature correlations and showing that they hold to over 1200km. The gridding in HadCRUT is rather crude, and C&W style kriging is far more accurate, but even the earliest HadCRUT data presents global data worth looking at.
LTO - If you have anything more solid than repeatedly disproven denier articles, or rather paranoid papers that claim any interesting work (ie, anything that hasn't been done to death before) is likely falsified (note: I'm referring to text since deleted by moderators from your post here), which indicates actual problems with infilling using temperature anomaly correlations, by all means point it out.
Barring that, your objections seem IMO to be an Argument from Incredulity.
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Eclectic at 10:58 AM on 1 February 20191934 - hottest year on record
Moderator @105 , my apologies for speculating on the coincidences.
KR @106 , thank you very much for that Cowtan & Way link. I have usually regarded the so-called "tropospheric" UAH/RSS satellite data as having minimal usefulness in regard to planetary surface temperatures ~ but Cowtan & Way point out that the loose correlation of satellite & surface, can be quite helpful when infilling by kriging or other interpolation methods. Presumably the modern infilling would provide some indirect support for the infilling of the circa 1934 records.
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michael sweet at 10:57 AM on 1 February 2019A Green New Deal must not sabotage climate goals
Doug C.
As you suggested a full blown nuclear discussion is generally unhelpful. You can help us deal with nuclear here at Skeptical Science.
For the past 4 or 5 years I have asked any nuclear supporters to write an OP about the benefits of Nuclear Power. If you cite peer reviewed data to support your claims I am sure it would be posted. Unfortunately, none of the nuclear supporters has been willing to do the work to support their claims. Perhaps in their hearts they all feel that nuclear is destined for the scrap heap of history.
As you state, there is a great deal of misrepresentation around nuclear power. I see many points in your post that I think are incorrect. If you write an OP you can correct me.
You should address the concerns about nuclear power raised in Abbott 2011 and Jacobson 2009. A discussion of the economics of nuclear power would also be helpful.
I look forward to reading your OP.
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1934 - hottest year on record
I will note that the Cowtan and Way temperature series includes gridded uncertainty measures, for measurements, coverage, etc.
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Doug_C at 09:21 AM on 1 February 2019A Green New Deal must not sabotage climate goals
"There are certainly legitimate objections to nuclear power, but it is nevertheless a zero-carbon energy source. If we consider climate change an urgent, existential threat and if we want to meet the Paris climate targets, then eliminating fossil fuels must be our first priority. Only after fossil fuels have been replaced can we consider doing the same to other zero-carbon energy sources."
Not to start an in-depth debate on this, but there is also a great deal of misrepresentation of the risk of nuclear power. Even with the dramatic "disasters" at TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power still remains the safest form of energy production.
Nuclear power offers an energy density that is unrivaled and with "new" - molten salt reactors date back to the 1950s - technology a level of safety that is much greater than even current PWRs and BWRs that have had most of the failure mechnisms engineered out of them.
Molten salt reactors in both the slow and fast spectrum and using both the thorium and uranium fuel cycle offer centuries of energy at current levels of consumption at least. And have benefits no other source of energy generation does like producing medical radio-isotopes and other highly valuable fission products like nobel metals and xenon.
They can also be used for large scale salt water desalination which could be a real boon in places that will be suffering from drought as a result of climate change. California comes to mind for this.
As for phasing out large-scale hydro-electric and all forms of combustion, where is the sense in that at all. Climate change is a potential existential threat, local air quality and watershed integrity are not. Here in BC many of our older dams are under-utilized, retro-fitting older dams with modern generation equipment could go a long way to filling the gap.
And with process like thermal depolymerization, any long chain organic waste can be coverted to light crude quivalent to Texas light in a matter of hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
How about America phases out all its landfills and sewage treatment facilities in large centers and replaces them with catalytic plants that can handle all orgnic waste while producing petroleum suitable for refining and manufacturing while also producing large amounts of methane - much of which is fed back into the process to power it - naptha and black carbon.
And to pay for the transition, introduce a revenue neutral fee and dividend system that allows individuals to choose which new source of energy generation they want to support.
The US and all nations need to tackle climate change first and phase out all fossil fuels as quickly as we can. Then deal with other concerns that are less pressing.
And that certainly applies to nuclear power which has never been the threat so many have presented it as being.
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Eclectic at 08:45 AM on 1 February 20191934 - hottest year on record
KR @102 and @103 ,
you may not have considered the matter: but this thread contains a modicum of internal evidence that Dr McLean and poster LTO have a possible coincidence of identities. Not conclusive of course, for the patterns of thinking are hardly rare in the deniosphere.
Moderator Response:[PS] No cyber-stalking. Speculations like this are extremely unhelpful and very unlikely.
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Evan at 06:53 AM on 1 February 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
Doug_C@13 Before I woke up to the reality of GW/CC about 7 years ago, before that time I started noticing what I called digital weather, where Spring would be wet and cold for about 2-3 months, then summer would be dry and hot for 2-3 months. In general Minnesota winters have been much milder than when I grew up. I remember experiencing -35F, but not -50F. In my generation (late 50's) I can't think of anyone I've talked with who does not remark about how winters are currently milder than in the 60's and 70's.
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Doug_C at 06:29 AM on 1 February 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
Evan @9
I grew up in north central British Columbia and in the late 1960s remember being kept home from school because the temperature had gone below -50F and there was concerns about frostbite in our young lungs.
In the 1980s working in the forestry sector there was one winter when it went below -40C and stayed there for a week. That was the last prolonged deep freeze I can remember here. We still get cold snaps but not like decades ago and the forests really show it. It takes prolonged deep cold to kill off large numbers of pine beetle who burrow into trees to lay eggs and produce natural antifreeze to make it through the winter.
All the dead trees covering BC are just one more sign of climate change to many of us.
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Evan at 06:26 AM on 1 February 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
nigelj@11 I think you are missing a link.
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JWRebel at 06:22 AM on 1 February 2019A Green New Deal must not sabotage climate goals
My initial reaction was exactly the same as NigelJ. In the Netherlands there is also a debate about a climate action plan (which the government has been compelled by law and by the courts to enact), but the simple measure that climate action specialists have recommended for 4 decades is too much to muster. Debate now rages about how fair it is to collect extra taxes for heating your home (which will disproportionately impact the poor, who tend to live in poorly insulated housing, and who spend a larger proportion of their income on heating, and who are already often forced to turn the heating down/off and wear blankets all day to make ends meets) ... extra taxes to help subsidize rebates for prospective new Tesla owners. Of course the biggest exceptions will apply to the largest corporate users who are already getting their energy for the lowest prices — that includes all airlines that pay far less for their kerosine than anybody else pays for gasoline.
The right and left will be at each others throats for decades before getting this done. A simple carbon tax is politically much less toxic and more effective. Distribute the tax revenue back per capita, which would make it a progressive tax. And add import adjustments for embedded carbon from countries that have lower carbon taxes. If we don't start there, we are asking to get bogged down. Trust me — the surest way to kill any project is by pretending to be even more ambitious and expand it until it becomes undoable.
I'm all for military order of magnitude spending on research and energy transitioning (much more than regulations prohibiting or mandating all sorts of things). But avoid at all costs the possibility that decarbonizing becomes a left/right political quagmire.
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nigelj at 06:00 AM on 1 February 2019A Green New Deal must not sabotage climate goals
The Green New Deal looks very well intended and a good overall philosophy, but it looks like it requires hundreds of complicated regulations which makes it unweildy. All because it lacks a price on carbon! and a simple idea like a carbon tax and cap and trade.
It also proposes the government build and fund billions in infrastructure, which is economically a high risk approach given federal debt is already high. A carbon tax and / or just a few limited subsidies would achieve the same end goal by pushing the private sector to build renewable energy.
The ideas seem to come form the New Deal of the 1930's but times were different then.I think the idea might be popular with the public because it doesn't involve a tax and leaves everything to the government, but I can't see politicians loving it, and they decide on legislation.
Just my gut reaction. I could be wrong. Its hard to predict what ideas will gain traction.
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scaddenp at 05:53 AM on 1 February 20191934 - hottest year on record
LTO - I agree it would be better if we had side-by-side chart of error-bars, but again, the chart is valid for the purpose. Even with double the estimated error, the essential picture of differences between 1934 and now is unchanged - it is fit for purpose.
As it is, as far as aware from the papers, a "map" of error estimates does not exist. The validation and error estimation methods instead work by latitude-range and sometimes ocean (eg the error bars for north atlantic are less than for north pacific).
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william5331 at 05:44 AM on 1 February 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
nigelj
Ruddiman has a very plausable theory on why this interglacial has been so much more stable, climate wise, than previous interglacials. See Plows Plagues and Petroleum. A fascinating read.
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william5331 at 05:41 AM on 1 February 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
The last thing you need when standing on the edge of a cliff is a great leap forward.
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1934 - hottest year on record
And here's a discussion of that thesis at 'And Then There's Physics', which points out that the thesis was completed under the direction of two well known climate deniers.
The science in that thesis is lousy, and it's not. a. good. source.
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1934 - hottest year on record
LTO - I looked back through your previous comments in your thread, and found your posting of a thesis by a John McLean, which somehow argues that HadCRUT is wholly unreliable. Is this the same John McLean who in 2011 stated (oh, so incorrectly) that temps were about to return to 1956 levels?
If so, I would humbly point out that he's not a good reference due to past demonstrated errors. His temperature predictions are among the worst I'm aware of.
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Daniel Bailey at 02:28 AM on 1 February 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
Respectfully, those periods were directly related to, and a result of, Large Igneous Province events. This has been covered by this venue before. But to the best of my knowledge, the evidence supporting a firing of the Clathrate Gun since the PETM is scarce (and the evidence of a firing then is mixed).
What the paleo record and recent research shows is that clathrates have endured periods of warmer temperatures than even now for even millions of years and remained in stable configurations. Obviously, that is not proof that clathrates will remain immune to future warming, but since in science we use the past as a guide to the future, it does lend some measure of confidence that time remains to make a difference for those coming after us.
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citizenschallenge at 01:28 AM on 1 February 2019New research, January 14-20, 2019
Ari, thanks for continuing with this thankless task. It is important!
But I'm here to ask a question: would you know the first time the PDO was incorporated into climate models?
I'm asking because I've read recent claims that climate models do not incorporate the PDO. I can imagine that perhaps long-term models may not incorporate the PDO because it's actually irrelevant to what they are looking at (since the PDO only pushes heat around). But, that's personal guessing.
Just seems to me the PDO has been studied a great deal and that the accumulating information would have been plugged into climate models - and if not, there's probably a good explanation that I would love to learn about.
But I don't know, I'm no scientist, though I do try to keep up with their findings.
Ari, can you (or anyone else) add any clarifying details?
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1934 - hottest year on record
LTO - If you are so concerned regarding the infill for certain regions in 1934 (an argument I find quite thin; the correlation strengths for those infills are well tested and established), then by all means simply compare the sampled areas in 1934 directly with the identical areas in 2016 - ignore the regions of increased coverage. And you will find, as per the OP, that 1934 was warm in a few regions such as the US, but overall the globe wasn't particularly warm (perhaps 0.1C below the 20th century average), and that the last few years are running perhaps 1C above the 20th century average, both in the subset well sampled in 1934 and in the world as a whole.
In short, the climate myth claiming that 1934 was a hot year, and thus attempting to refute general temperature assessments, is both wrong and a bad idea, scientifically speaking.
Given that, just what is your complaint about the OP?
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Evan at 23:47 PM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
I grew up in Minnesota, and winter was not winter until we had one or two weeks when daily highs were below 0 and lows were in the -20's or colder. Now we have a couple days when it's cold, and this weekend we will be in the higher 30's low 40's!
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MA Rodger at 22:56 PM on 31 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
LTO @96.
Firstly, my apologies for the "... and this refers to both land and ocean data" within my comment @94. This was part of a rather-too-long passage that was cut, and should have been cut in its entirety. (This cut passage concerned the "reliability" comment on the ERSST info web-page being part of the caption for a missing graphic.)
Secondly, looking at your many comments down this thread, you "beef" is that you consider it inappropriate to in-fill temperatures on an anomaly map. You term this in-fill for the 1934 map in the OP (actually a 5-year period centred on 1934) "exceptionally misleading," "massively misleading and something of a work of fiction," "fanciful" and suggest it is unjustifiable. You appear to expect coverage to be at least ten stations per ~200km square. And despite the long-long interchange since #59 up-thread, I don't see any movement from that position.
You appear to want folk here to furnish you with station-number/measurement-numbers for some remote part of the world at some time in the past; this information to demonstrate that you are justified in branding the anomay map in the OP "exceptionally misleading." But such a conclusion ignores the ability of folk to produce such anomaly maps that remain remarkably accurate with far fewer data. I think you are less after understanding (which you have said is your purpose) and more are looking for a research assistant to furnish you with ammunition for your erroneous "beef."
Thirdly, I am aware that you asked a question @87. Demanding an answer isn't a good way of getting an answer. Besides, I am not entirely sure an answer would be helpful to your understanding.
So perhaps there is need to restructure your 'enquiry' here. So far, it is producing a lot of words and with very little coherence.
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Doug_C at 18:52 PM on 31 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
It may require some fundamental shift to destabilize some of these methane hydrate deposits, the concern I have is we are shifting the entire global system of heat transfer and storage from a relatively stable state to one that is in flux to a much different system. One not ever seen before when we consider continental arrangement, Solar output and ocean circulation.
There was a paper by Hansen and his GISS team a number of years ago about research that showed it was possible that as the poles continue to warm and deep water submergence off of Greenland slowed it a new area of deep water submergence could form in temperate zones introducing relatively warm water to the deep ocean.
There are so many variables at work here that I don't think a massive methane release is off the table. It may not happen for decades or centuries, but we could be creating the conditions right now that triggers such a release at a later time and not even know it.
What we do see in the geological record is the isotopic fingerprint of massive methane clathrate releases during periods of rapid warming from a prior stable state.
Which is exactly what is happening now.
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LTO at 18:42 PM on 31 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
Remarkable that someone considered something in my post at #96 to be inflammatory and yet lets eclectic spew insult after insult cf #97.
Scadden: you're persisting in refusing to engage on the points I'm actually making about the 1934 chart. You say that uncertainty and large error bars aren't thr same as don't know, but this depends on what the question is, and what you're trying to do with the data. The 1934 chart doesn't present any error bars, uncertainties or indications of statistical significance at all nor acknowledge the massive spread in uncertainties across different parts of the globe. The error is not homogeneous. This, as I've been repeatedly saying, is incredibly misleading as it leads people to think we know far more than we actually do.
Moderator Response:[JH] Moderation complaint snipped.
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Elmwood at 15:07 PM on 31 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
I used to interact briefly with methane hydrate researchers at the USGS, mostly from a resource assessment perspective. From what I remember, being a non-clathrate specialist, was that they (USGS, i.e. Carolyn Ruppel and Tim Collett) didn't think massive marine destabilization via global warming was likely. I remember someone saying that ocean waters are relatively unsaturated with methane and that the methane wouldn't be able to rise to the surface.. I could be totally wrong on this!
I do know that the going theory is that massive onshore methane hydrates deposits are "frozen" thermogenic natural gas fields that had probably been there for a long time, well before the icehouse climate we are or used to be in. Therefore, it's unlikely that these frozen gas fields will destabalize and make it to the atmosphere--they are already trapped so to speak.
The methane hydrate stability zone, onshore Artic Alaska, is typically around 800' to over 4,000' below the surface, and would take a very long time to thaw out anyways. By then the earth will probably be 8 degrees C warmer--game over!
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nigelj at 14:48 PM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
Regarding America's current very cold weather: NOAA's Brilliant Response To Trumps Climate Tweet
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Doug_C at 12:01 PM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
michael sweet @3
You're right to advise caution as weather extremes are often misrepresented as "proof" that a long term warming is not taking place.
It's important to note that global warming and climate change is a long term trend taking place over the entire globe. And while local cold weather records may be broken, this is almost certainly a result of the chaotic disruption of weather caused by a global transition to a warmer Earth.
In the case of some periods of cold weather in North America, this may be due to the fact that generaly warmer temperatures in the Arctic have disrupted atmospheric circulation that in the past has tended to isolate very cold air masses above the Arctic in the winter.
This can result in unusual weather across North America such as a few year ago when we in Edmonton Alberta were experiencing unusually mild weather well above freezing when Florida was seeing sub zero weather and snow.
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michael sweet at 11:20 AM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
I am sorry, in the USA there were 7 cold records in the past 365 days.
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michael sweet at 11:13 AM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
Nigelj,
Read the link to Cliff Mass. The data show that cold waves are much less frequent and are warmer than they used to be. They are warming faster than the global average.
If you look at the all time temperature records at the NCDC (linked above) in the past 365 days in the USA there were 181 hot records and only 5 cold records (!!!). That is because hot records are much more common than they used to be and cold records are much less common.
In the NCDC all time global records in the past 365 days there were 568 hot records and only 18 cold records. I do not know how many global sites they use. Many news reports call temperatures that are the coldest for the past 50 years a "record cold" even though it used to be much colder. I also heard "coldest in a generation" which is generally only 30 years. People forget what it used to be like.
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nigelj at 11:00 AM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
The cold weather in America might well be nothing truly record setting, but there is some preliminary evidence climate change is altering the behaviour of the polar vortex, and leading to potentially lengthy and more frequent periods of very cold winter temperatures in America.
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michael sweet at 09:09 AM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
Doug C.:
While many mass media outlets have reported record cold, it has not yet been as cold as it used to be from 1900-1950.
At the NCDC temperature records page they currently record no monthly cold lows or monthly cold highs set in the past 7 days. I have seen several reports of daily records (not monthly or yearly records) that might be set tonight. It is possible that the data has not had time to be recorded yet, we should check back in a few days. Since it is January a yearly cold record would be unusual cold while a daily record is not as significant.
Cliff Mass has a post that shows cold spells are warming faster than average global warming (hat tip to snape at Tamino's).
Until the data shows a few all time lows the "record polar vortex" is so much smoke. A post at Tamino's showed that in Minneapolis the number of days per year -20F or lower has dramatically decreased for the past several decades. I heard a newsman report on PBS that it was the "coldest it had been in 50 years". Global warming really got going 50 years ago. A 50 year record would be a cold, but not exceptional day, in the 1920's.
During the "Summer in Wnter" in 2012, in at least 4 locations the low temperature at night was higher than the previous highest temperature ever recorded (at locations with long periods of record). Several daily records were broken by 30F. We will see if this cold spell actually sets any significant records next week.
The deniers like to hype average cold spells as record setting, don't believe them. If it is the coldest day in 20 years it is as cold as an average cold day 75 years ago.
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Doug_C at 08:37 AM on 31 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.” - Mark Twain
There are no greater fools in todays world than those who are intentionally denying fossil fuels driven climate change.
They have won the decades long struggle to face this crisis by pulling the rest of society most notably the entire field of science into the mud where everyone is seen in the same irresponsible and foolish light.
Those of us who really are interested in being the best not worst we can be need to step totally out of this paradigm and make the necessary changes.
In the long term we will all be so much the better for it.
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Evan at 07:30 AM on 31 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
Doug_C@8 Well said. So let's stop asking people if they believe in GW/CC and just take polls about what we should do about it. By asking if people believe GW/CC is occurring and if ask about causation, we are leading into the industry that is standing in the way of progress. That is, we legitimize the false debate by asking about the false ndebate.
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Doug_C at 07:06 AM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
According to the work of James Hansen et al climate sensitivity roughly follows a U-shaped curve, which means the further you get from your approximately stable start point the faster change occurs.
Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
The longer we push this process the more dangerous it gets with major tipping points like the loss of polar ice sheet stability, ice albedo effect and altering of ocean and atmospheric circulation.
We're now experiencing in North America what a destabilized Arctic vortex means with very cold air that usually sits over the North Pole during winter being pulled deep into the continent producing record cold in many places.
We'll also see these extremes in coming years as ocean levels increase and record storm activity creates record storm surges. Not a possibility now, a statistical certainty given the conditions.
A safe level of CO2 is almost certainly below;
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scaddenp at 06:59 AM on 31 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
Validation and errors have been re-examined a number of times, as the explicitly stated in the Huang 2016 method paper and easily followed in the bibliography. As a side note BEST was set up because of perceived errors in the temperature record. They tried a new methodology (always good) but ended up discovering that that existing methodology worked after all. Perception is not reality, but BEST credit, this is science and skepticism working as it should.
What is peeving for me and other commentators is that your insistence "we know things about the global distribution of temp anomalies that we simply don’t" Uncertainty and large error bars are not the same as "dont know". Huang comments on pre-1940 data are more deeply discussed in the methods and earlier papers. 1940 is when change in measurement methodology occurred as well as issues with coverage. These all combine to uncertainties of up to 0.9C in lower southern hemisphere oceans. Double that if you like and the difference between 1934 and now is still pretty much as depicted by the figure.
Sparcity of measurement does not translate into unknowable. You can use modern satellite data to show anomalies are spatially correlated over large distance and estimate errors in unsampled areas. You dont appear to have read how the anomaly baselines are actually calculated. Try Smith and Reynolds 2003 and note especially the discussion about high and low frequency distributions. And, yes, weather models are useful. Humidity measurements made down wind constrain what temperatures upwind can be etc etc. And, no you dont have to take it on faith. Reanalysis models do extensive validation otherwise noone would trust them.
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Doug_C at 06:29 AM on 31 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
Evan @7
Unfortunatley we are now in a position of triage having to decide what we can save and what resources we have to do so.
The loss of coral reef systems alone is going to have a profound effect on how life in the oceans behave. One quarter of marine species are dependent on coral reefs for some or all of their lifecycle. The oceans are the main lungs of the planet and home to most life here.
The loss of glaciers is going to also have major impacts on us and the ecosystems around us in many places. I'm from British Columbia and have been familiar with glaciers all my life and the rivers and lakes they feed. It's really sobering to think of a BC... and many other places... with little or no glaciers.
As a kid in the early 1970s I remember a family trip through Glacier national park on the Canada-US border and the many glaciers that gave the park its name. Most are now gone in a pattern repeated globally.
The polar ice sheets have already lost their stability and are losing ice at an incredible rate, far faster than models that treat them as solid blocks melting from the outside predicted.
And it goes on an on, we have upset a fundamental balance that determines one of the most important factors on Earth, how warm it is on the planet's surface. And it is still treated as a relatively minor issue by far too many people, many of them in positions that need to take responsible action, not keep promoting the same activities that have brought us here.
I also have family who work in the oil industry in Alberta and I get how important it is to people there. But it is incredibly frustrating to try to explain to people how what they are doing right now to meet their immediate needs is going to make it very difficult to impossible for them and their kids to meet those needs in just a few decades. With major emergencies along the way like the record flooding in southern Alberta in 2013 and the massive wildfires that burned down Fort McMurray in 2016.
There are real actions and solutions to this growing catastrophe but they require a willingness to change. Sadly something that is still lakcing in many people, who are somehow able to ignore the fact that the Earth is already changing now for the worst.
Real change to a low carbon sustainable energy and economic model has so many benefits that it no longer makes any sense at all to talk about fossil fuels as anything else but a disaster on a scale that makes CFCs, DDT and many other human created ecological and social problems minor in comparison.
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nigelj at 06:15 AM on 31 January 2019SkS Analogy 18 - Cliff jumping and temperature changes
The current interglacial period called the Holocene has had very stable temperatures (within 1 degree of variation) over about the last 10,000 years, and this perfectly suits agriculture, which appeared early during this period and flourished. Prior to that period during the ice age climate variation had huge global swings.
Agriculture loves a stable climate, and has been the foundation of advanced human civilisation. We are putting all this at risk. This guy is a chemistry teacher and has some really good thoughts on it.
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Evan at 04:46 AM on 31 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
Doug_C@6 Well said.
We need to stop the polls that ask if so and so believes in GW/CC and whether they think humans are contributing.
Just ask, "What do you think the consequences of GW/CC will be?"
"What are you prepared to do to decrease GHG emissions?
We don't ask people if they think the Earth is round or if the sun orbits the Earth. Time to stop asking people what they think about science they don't know any better than orbital dynamics.
We need to lead people towards action and solutions.
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Doug_C at 04:09 AM on 31 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
nigelj @3
We already have crossed climatic tipping points that already have profound impacts on all our lives and the biosphere as a whole.
It's not pessimism to keep pointing out that coral reef systems are probably going largely extinct in what is an instant in geological terms.
That the cryosphere is in rapid retreat that is going to have significant impacts globally for people and ecosystems.
That extreme weather events are creating hellish conditions already and more.
And we're still at the same rate or higher of carbon dioxide emissions as decades ago when some of the earliest experts were warning of this growing catastrophe.
And it is a catastrophe already with the very real potential to eclipse all other catastrophes in human history. In fact it is guaranteed to do so if we just keep collectively doing what we're doing for a little bit longer.
The inertia in change created by this one radiative forcing is incredible and we keep adding to it each year based on the myth that we can suddenly turn it around when it becomes so destructive that it is impossible for anyone to deny the danger.
It's iike if a mob of people were levering a massive boulder on a slope above a town. It moves slowly at first and they keep up the process of forcing to a gradually higher and higher speed as the slope it is on increases. This is exactly what is happening with fossil fuels created climate change.
The longer it goes on and the more it is forced the more force it has until it is totally out of control and every in its path is destroyed.
And a huge part of the debate is still if it's even happening.
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Lookout at 01:34 AM on 31 January 2019Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
I can't add scientific value to this debate though I am a voracious reader on the subject. Just want to say how refreshing it is to see Chris & Mizimi having a scientific debate without the usual vitriolic climate denier criticism.
Have to say I feel Mizimi has a slight edge & remain convinced that the sun is the primary driver of climate change.
Moderator Response:[DB] The incoming energy from the sun has been well-documented and studied, for literally generations of scientists. That the sun plays almost no role in the warming of the surface of the Earth over the past 50+ years is also well-researched, well-documented and uncontentious in any scientific sense.
From the 4th National Climate Assessment, Volume 2, released by the Trump Administration:
"Scientists have understood the fundamental physics of climate change for almost 200 years. In the 1850s, researchers demonstrated that carbon dioxide and other naturally occurring greenhouse gases in the atmosphere prevent some of the heat radiating from Earth’s surface from escaping to space: this is known as the greenhouse effect.
This natural greenhouse effect warms the planet’s surface about 60°F above what it would be otherwise, creating a habitat suitable for life. Since the late 19th century, however, humans have released an increasing amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels and, to a lesser extent, deforestation and land-use change. As a result, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% over the industrial era.
This change has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.
Global climate is also influenced by natural factors that determine how much of the sun’s energy enters and leaves Earth’s atmosphere and by natural climate cycles that affect temperatures and weather patterns in the short term, especially regionally.
However, the unambiguous long-term warming trend in global average temperature over the last century cannot be explained by natural factors alone.
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only factors that can account for the observed warming over the last century; there are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.
Without human activities, the influence of natural factors alone [which includes the sun] would actually have had a slight cooling effect on global climate over the last 50 years."
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Eclectic at 01:27 AM on 31 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
LTO @96 ,
further to my points @95 , have you come to any substantive useful conclusions about AGW and mainstream climate science?
Thus far, your posts have been remarkably discursive and deficient in critical thinking.
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LTO at 00:59 AM on 31 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
Hi MA
You may notice that ‘beef’ was first used in #91, and not by me.
I’ve set out my concerns now a number of times. I asked you some questions in #87 you haven’t answered. If you don’t know the answers, it‘s fine to admit it. My purpose here isn’t to trick anyone, just to increase my understanding of the relative uncertainties. There are indeed many profound omissions in my knowledge on this topic, which is precisely why I’m here. I’ve never pretended otherwise. I’d add with certainty that there are many profound omissions in the knowledge of people who have made up their minds that climate change will destroy the world in 12 years, as well.
There’s an irony here that a site called sceptical science treats questions about extremely complicated data manipulation with dismissive rudeness. You haven’t done this - your answers have been exceptionally informative - but the same can’t be said of some of your colleagues. It isn’t my job to ‘distinguish’ myself from different people asking different questions, although frankly I’d have thought that the ‘asking different questions’ element would do this.
Your claim that the comment about ERSST data before 1950 being unreliable (which I quoted in full in #80) is referring to both land and sea data isn’t apparent at all, and the page appears to be talking solely about The Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) dataset. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/marineocean-data/extended-reconstructed-sea-surface-temperature-ersst-v5 It may be another profound omission of mine to think that this data set is just, you know, sea surface temperatures, but I suspect I’m on more solid footing here. I’m not sure what the relevance of the point is, either way, as it doesn’t move anything forward from my comments at #92
As to the point about statistical error analysis, I suspect you’re being disingenuous. If not, read this and prepare to be amazed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/
Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory and off-topic snipped.
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Eclectic at 00:26 AM on 31 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
LTO , my comment is a general one :-
Granted that our knowledge of localized climatic conditions becomes increasingly imperfect as we look backward through the past century (and indeed, past millennium) . . . is there any substantive conclusion (from that truism) which you wish to present to the readers of this thread?
You make the valid point that there should be better understanding of "statistics and treatment of errors". But (so far) you have not drawn any substantive conclusion (from that point) regarding the science of modern climate. Are you trying to show that the mainstream/consensus assessment of AGW is wrong in a major way? And if so . . . how is it wrong?
You yourself have indicated ( in #87 , though in a passive way ) that the contrarian scientists who undertook the BEST project did end up in confirming the mainstream science. Which is also confirmed by the simple physical evidence of melting ice / rising sea level / oceanic acidification / species migration / etcetera.
And as for "statistics and treament of errors" . . . none of us should forget that the methodology of statistics has the primary purpose of illuminating/assessing scientific "fact" (or more grandly, "truth"). I am sure you would like to agree that statistics ought not to be used to obfuscate, or to persuade the reader toward falsehoods & pseudo-science. Of course.
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Swayseeker at 23:31 PM on 30 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
To my mind there is huge danger. With melting snow and ice you are getting more water vapour in the air. Water vapour radiates infrared radiation and snow and ice are almost like black bodies when it comes to infrared radiation. Besides this, the dark rock left behind after melting will absorb far more radiation than snow. The extra infrared radiation from greenhouse gases is mainly in the 5 to 8 micron wavelength range and above about 14 microns in wavelenth. This downwelling sky radiation concentrates itself in the top few mm of the sea surface causing high sea surface temperatures which will lead to rapid evaporation.
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MA Rodger at 22:43 PM on 30 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
LTO @92/93,
Perhaps the difficulty you have with your "beef" is that it has a great similarity to that more commonly persented by folk who are in denial about AGW and who argue robustly against the very evidence itself. Given that similarity, you do need to be on the very top of your game to differentiate yourself from such contrarians. So not grasping that GISS LOTI is a combination of surface air temperature (GHCN) surface sea temperature (ERSST) is a rather profound omission. I would also add that the lack of patience with those comments challenging you is also something of a contrarian characteristic.
Picking up on your assertion that the ERSSTv5 info web page says that "explicitly acknowledge(s) on their website unreliability of data from the 1940s and earlier"; this is incorrect. The statement made is "Note that the data are more reliable after the 1940s" and this refers to both land and ocean data. What is 'reliable' depends on your purpose. Note the description following that statement. So if that is to compare the ERSST 2° × 2° grided data cell-by-cell (2° of latitude is 210km), then 'reliability' pre-1950 may be more of an issue for you.
If you have specific concerns with 'uncertainty' regarding these data, it would be good if you set them out. And by that, I mean describing them properly rather than presenting accusative statements such as "the vast majority of scientists ... don’t really understand statistics and treatment of errors. It’s not a trivial point..." or suggesting there is "imaginary 1934 data ... No such measurements exist in 1934" being presented as real. If your "beef" were to rattle out levels of accuracy in temperature records, we wouldn't expect such language.
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LTO at 21:49 PM on 30 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
Hi Michael
Moderator Response:[JH] Antagonistic, ad-hominem snipped. In addition, you are now skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is also prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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LTO at 21:34 PM on 30 January 20191934 - hottest year on record
Hi Scadden
Accepted! :) My beef is that the 1934 chart gives the impression we know things about the global distribution of temp anomalies that we simply don’t. I consider it to be extremely misleading, even if the point of this article (1934 was only hot in localised areas) is true. Generally, I‘m finding there is a real lack of acknowledgement and proper treatment of uncertainties. Unfounded certainty raises red flags, and is unscientific.
If you’ve got a solid background in experimental science you’ll know that the vast majority of scientists (particularly those in softer fields) don’t really understand statistics and treatment of errors. It’s not a trivial point, nor is validation of data. As we get more And more measurement data, it becomes less and less reasonable to rely on old analyses of validation and associated errors. As I understand it Berkeley Earth was set up precisely because of myriad errors in climate data analysis (even if the eventual conclusions on land temperature changes were in line with prior analysis).
To illustrate what I mean, see the annotated image here. https://imgur.com/a/TkeiRrt There are ‘features’ in areas where there was probably no data collected in 1934, meaning that what we’re looking at in the areas I’ve highlighted is a largely imaginary baseline (I.e. using infilled data modelling for much of the 20th century) overlaid with imaginary 1934 data. If you look at the areas I’ve highlighted in the 2016 data, you can see there are real features that you’d only identify from having actual measurements. No such measurements exist in 1934, and so the model just assumes everything is cold, and makes up some features to give the impression of being realistic. Do you see my point?
Re the SST data, I address the Huang et al data set in #80 above - ERSST explicitly acknowledge on their website unreliability of data from the 1940s and earlier. I must say I’m a bit confused now about whether the chart is supposed to be sea surface temperatures or air temperatures. Obviously the two are linked, but they’re not the same thing.
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michael sweet at 21:28 PM on 30 January 2019Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change
Tobirh,
If you look carefully at figure 1 the numbers are rounded. Incoming 341.3 is rounded to 341. Outgoing 101.9 is rounded to 102 and 238.5 is roumded to 239. If you add up the unrounded numbers they leave 0.9 w/m2 absorbed.
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nigelj at 16:24 PM on 30 January 2019The Methane 'Time Bomb': How big a concern?
The video was a snap shot of different points of view, with no unifying dialogue or conclusions. This could be seen as thought provoking and non preachy, but some people might conclude "nobody really knows what's going on". Is this the message we want to send?
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