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nigelj at 04:57 AM on 5 December 2018Is Methane Worse than CO2?? | Climate Chemistry
I appreciate that CO2 is the greater problem than methane, but I wonder if the short residence time of methane in the atmosphere creates a false sense of security. The shortness doesn't matter if we just go on emitting methane, which looks likely if humanity goes on consuming meat etc.
There is also risk that if temperatures reached 5 degrees, then the melting of permafrost and methane release in Siberia would become irreversible, and would obviously go on for many centuries guaranteeing a lot of methane with probably no way of stopping it. The arctic permafrost is many metres deep. However this simply highlights the need to reduce CO2 emissions.
www.businessinsider.com.au/hothouse-earth-climate-change-tipping-point-2018-8?r=US&IR=T
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william5331 at 04:38 AM on 5 December 2018SkS Analogy 16 - Arctic ice, sailboat keels, and wild weather
The Jet stream doesn't shepherd weather systems around the world. This theory is like the old plum pudding model of the atom. It is the wall of rising air under the jet stream which marks the boarder between the Polar Hadley Cell and the Ferrel Hadley cell. Leaving that aside there is a, possibly, more illuminating way of thinking of what is happening and hence what is coming.
Clasically, with the Artic ocean and surrounding land covered in snow, radiation is reflected back into space. The air above the Arctic also radiates heat into space, becomes dense and falls to spread out south as it hits the surface of the earth. This is what powers the Polar Hadley cell. You all know about the Equatorial Hadley cell and a idler gear (the Ferral cell) is needed in between. The Polar and Equatorial cells can not meet. (At mid latitudes the Equatorial Hadley cell causes falling air while the Polar cell at mid latitudes causes rising air).
When the Arctic ocean is ice free for a significant portion of the summer, we will have rising air over the Arctic and the jet stream, which is now weakening due to the weakening of the Polar Hadley cell should disappear. Essentially the Ferral cell will extend to the Arctic Ocean. Climate zones will jump northward in contrast to their present slow creep and with them, the grain growing areas of the Northern Hemisphere with obvious results.
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Doug_C at 04:36 AM on 5 December 2018SkS Analogy 16 - Arctic ice, sailboat keels, and wild weather
Evan @3
I agree fully, I was referring more to contrarians who use the claim that a few degrees increase in global temperature will have little impacts. When we already see significant changes in climate in many places and very troubling responses in biological communities such as the massive die offs of coral reefs in places like the Great Barrier Reef.
This temperature increase is averaged over the entire globe and as the meter constantly ticking here indicates, the addition of billions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere mostly from fossil fuels use also adds an incredible amount of heat to the Earth's surface. Over 2.685 billion Hiroshima bomb heat units since 1998 alone with 4 more being added every second.
We are reordering how heat and thus weather and climate is distributed around the Earth and this is already having catastrophic impacts.
The increase in global average temperature may be "slight" in relation to the overall temperature of the Earth, but there is nothing slight in the impacts. And at some point we will hit tipping points that will likely force rapid changes to an Earth that simply will not support many of the current species here now.
Ecosystem transition on a global scale as has happened in the past with rapid excursions in CO2 and then climate are now referred to as Extinction Level Events.
Do we really want to create one that we will all be caught in.
Alarming new study makes today’s climate change more comparable to Earth’s worst mass extinction
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Evan at 03:41 AM on 5 December 2018SkS Analogy 16 - Arctic ice, sailboat keels, and wild weather
Doug_C@1 "'Climate change is not a smooth and gradual process to a slightly warmer Earth"
i'm sure you'll agree that the word "slightly" only applies when you look at global averages, and that there is nothing "slight" about the warming in the Arctic. This is the deceptive nature of uneven warming, especially when the jet stream is driven by temperature differences.
Sunspot@2 Interesting points you make. Is it the case that the jet stream we grew up with required the cooling of both the Arctic and Greenland? In other words, even if the track of the jet stream is influenced by what becomes the coldest part of the northern hemisphere, will the strength of the jet stream be dictated by the net cooling of the Arctic plus Greenland? In that case it would seem that the loss of Arctic ice will irreversibly decrease the net cooling up there.
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Sunspot at 03:23 AM on 5 December 2018SkS Analogy 16 - Arctic ice, sailboat keels, and wild weather
Paul Beckwith has proposed the alarming notion that, when the Arctic Ocean goes essentially ice-free, and the North Pole is no longer the coldest region in the Northern Hemisphere, that honor will pass to Northern Greenland. The question is, would the Jet Stream follow along, doing its dance with Greenland being the center of circulation, a full 17 degrees from the pole? Paul declined to speculate on what the effect would be on weather patterns, but it's not likely the result would be favorable to the humans.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:58 AM on 5 December 2018Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
purpcran,
The Club of Rome and Bertrand Russel references sound like attempts to avoid pursuing improved awareness and understanding of climate sceince (and many other matters that matter to the future of humanity).
The current best awareness and understanding of what is required for the future of humanity is presented in the Sustainable Development Goals which includes the Climate Action Goal.
The Climate Action Goals are key. More rapidly achieving and improving on them makes it easier to achieve many of the other goals.
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will require Global Cooperation and Collaboration. That may look like Global Government, but what works best to achieve the SDGs, including Globally agreed and enforced corrections of what has developed, is a Good Thing.
Anyone preferring to prolong already developed, but clearly unhelpful or incorrect beliefs and actions, can be expected seek out and prefer reasons to devisively polarize themselves away from improving their awareness and uderstanding.
I hope that helps.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:58 AM on 5 December 2018But their Emails!
JP66 appears to be another one of the 'too many' who deliberately divisively polarize themselves away from improved awareness and understanding, to the detriment of the future of humanity.
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, especially the Climate Action Goal, is essential for the future of humanity. Too many people have developed desires that lead them to divisively polarize away from that improved awareness and understanding.
Division and polarization are clearly a serious problem when they happen regarding 'the constantly improving understanding of things that are understandably evidence based'.
Division and polarization can also occur regarding matters of personal Opinion or Preference (matters that have no real evidence as a basis, are just matters of belief and faith) such as:
- what city has the best sports teams
- what sport is best
- what type of music is best
- what type of cuisine is best
- which spiritual belief is best.
But those issues are inconsequential to the future of humanity. And all Opinions regarding them need to be respected as long as they do not lead people to act in ways that are harmful to the advancement of humanity to a sustainable better future.
The correct (and constantly improved) understanding of matters that matter to the future of humanity is what matters. Humanity only advances by improved awareness and understanding.
New things, like new technological applications, may or may not be advancements. Many people fail to understand that. They incorrectly perceive new technological developments as advacements of humanity.
Improved awareness and understanding of the sustainability or harmfulness of any activity is always an advancement (no matter how unpopular it is). A developed liking for a belief or way of living can undeniably develop damaging resistance to improved awareness and understanding.
Unfortunately the developed competitions for 'impressions of superiority relative to others', with popularity and profitability as the measures of acceptability, have resulted in many people developing preferences that lead them to choose to divisively polarize themselves away from improved awareness and understanding.
The case of climate science, and the divisive polarization of people away from improved awareness and understanding of it, is clear evidence that the socioeconomic-political systems that develop people who choose to avoid improving their awareness and understanding need to be corrected.
That correction would result in governing and limiting the actions of everyone based on improved awareness and understanding. It would require correction of developed popular incorrect beliefs that unjustly excuse harmful and unsustainable pursuits of personal benefit and profit.
That means finding ways to correct the people who incorrectly understand important matters, and keeping people who resist improving their awareness and understanding from significantly impacting Others (essentially the correct application of The Rule of Law, and correction of incorrect applications of Law).
That is the challenge of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, not just the Climate Action one. The future of humanity requires the challenge of people like JP66, who choose to divisively polarize themselves away from improved awareness and understanding, to be corrected (to learn to change their mind) or be disappointed by being limited contrary to their incorrect developed personal desire to be freer to believe and do whatever they please.
The freedom to be incorrect regarding matters that matter is harmful to the future of humanity.
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Aurelian at 23:34 PM on 4 December 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #48
Link pointing to the source is actually https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/11/1027101
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purpcran at 22:04 PM on 4 December 2018Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Eclectic @ 104, wow, the tone you used with Atc was extremely condescending. Just wow. I'm sorry that your life sucks that hard. And even more repulsive is how you go ad hominem for more than half your reply while barely responding to his points, then proceed to lecture him about staying on topic. Ridiculous behavior, which, I suspect, was motivated by your inability to respond to his points. If this is at all representative of the scientists of this generation, I can see why people would choose to listen to a random youtube video over "experts".
Moderator Response:[DB] 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.
Inflammatory snipped.
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purpcran at 21:41 PM on 4 December 2018Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Ahh that's right...nevermind that the Club of Rome specifically mentions global warming as just one element in a larger agenda to exert global control over humanity...
It might not be scientific evidence, but does it matter at all when the perpetrators have already confessed, in advance, AND THEN PUBLISHED THEIR ENTIRE PLAN?? Arguing about the science seems absurd when no one even discusses this point. It's sad that so many "scientists" are willing to play the useful idiot in our own enslavement. Here's a quote from Bertrand Russel:
“The society of experts will control propaganda and education. It will teach loyalty to the world government, and make nationalism high treason. The government, being an oligarchy, will instill submissiveness into the great bulk of the population…It is possible that it may invent ingenious ways of concealing its own power, leaving the forms of democracy intact, and allowing the plutocrats or politicians to imagine that they are cleverly controlling these forms…whatever the outward forms may be, all real power will come to be concentrated in the hands of those who understand the art of scientific manipulation.”
Sounds familiar...
Moderator Response:[PS] Sloganeering and politics. "Agenda" is the stuff of conspiracy theorists which are welcome at say WUWT but not here.
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nigelj at 12:02 PM on 4 December 2018But their Emails!
JP66, @ 21 & 22
"No. My quote was not previously released."
Yes it was. I found your quote on several other websites for example here, just by googling it and it certainly forms part of climategate according to them. Whether it does or does not doesn't actually seem that significant anyway, nobody is denying that it's real.
Why for example would it be wrong to stitch recent temperatures onto a paleo reconstruction? You don't say. I cannot see the problem. Science combines data sets all the time. Nobody has shown a specific problem in the way the data is stitched together, and obviously modern instrumental data is going to be more accurate than modern paleo data.
There were some criticisms of Manns statistics in the official enquiry, but this is a separate thing. Official reviews of his hockey stick did not say it was fundamentally wrong.
"and the original paper said it should only be a piece of the picture, but the posters here use it as THE proof."
Proof of what?
Like I said additional papers have been done using different approaches and found much the same result of a relatively weak MWP, so things do not hinge around M Manns original paper. This seems to be fairly compelling evidence relating to the MWP. Even if the MWP was warmer than today, what do you think that would prove?
"I will never post here again because it is apparent this site is against discussion. You just lost points in the war."
But your problem is you dont discuss things. You have not specifically addressed points people have raised above including myself. Instead you just repeat yourself and go onto new issues, and you just make assertions.
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JP66 at 11:06 AM on 4 December 2018But their Emails!
No. My quote was not previously released.
A theory is valid until one piece of data invalidates it. 1 million papers become irrelevant if data invalidates the hypothesis.
The hockey stick graph is not a useful bit of data because it is too controversial and is based on a combination of proxy data and thermometer data. The NAS said it should not have been given the importance it was afforded, and the original paper said it should only be a piece of the picture, but the posters here use it as THE proof.
That is one example of why I remain on the fence.
People here are just as biased as the people on WUWT. For a layman interested in parsing the best evidence posters here are not helping.
Moderator Response:[DB] Please learn what constitutes a scientific theory.
Also 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.
Sloganeering snipped. -
barry1487 at 09:41 AM on 4 December 2018But their Emails!
JP66's cited email was part of the tranche hacked years ago.
Seems unlikely JP66 is reading the latest release, and instead is trawling contrarian blogs.
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barry1487 at 09:32 AM on 4 December 2018But their Emails!
JP66 @ 8 and 9:
As it stands your drive-by reflects the shoddy behaviour the pointed out in the article. If you are truly interested in the science, and not another muckraker, would you kindly provide directions to the email you cited so we can get more context?
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MA Rodger at 09:27 AM on 4 December 2018CO2 is coming from the ocean
scaddenp @13,
There was the admission from Hairy Turtle @12 that propane was "is not the only type of fuel burned" but that propane was taken "for example" as a fossil fuel. So enumerating the ratios for the different fuels is good to see. Yet the pertinent number from Manning & Keeling (2006) is surely the average ratio of O2:CO2 for total emissions for all fossil fuels. The paper gives it as 1.39, a little lower than the value for propane given @12 as 5:3 or 1.66.
That 1.39 average value is an average for the 1990s. If you look at CO2 emissions by fuel-type through the years, the figure was dropping from the turn of the century as coal-use made a come-back, dropping from a high of about 1.40 down to 1.36 but subsequently with coal now less used, the ratio has now risen to something like 1.50 in recent years. -
michael sweet at 08:47 AM on 4 December 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
dkierleber,
You have asked good questions that are on topic. I think you have a small misunderstanding that will soon be corrected. Keep up the discussion till you feel you are informed. It helps other readers to hear your questions. Everyone looks harder at their understanding.
I think you are just a little off. As I understand the physics, it is easy for carbon dioxide molecules to lose the extra vibrational energy they get from IR photons through collisions with other molecules. Due to the long time before a new photon is released, there are usually thousands or millions of collisions before a photon is emitted. It is not necessary for a photon to be emitted at the same time as the collision. The extra vibrational energy ends up as kinetic energy and heats up the atmosphere.
Because other molecules of CO2 can be put in the excited state by collisions there is always a population of molecules that can emit photons. Even though most of the molecules do not emit the energy as photons, enough do to keep the system in equilibrium. At higher temperatures more molecules are in the excited state and more photons are emitted.
I think line broadening is only a small contribution to the greenhouse effect. The primary issue is that when CO2 is at low concentrations emitted photons escape to outer space. At high concentrations of CO2 the photons are absorbed by other CO2 molecules before they can escape.
On Mars the CO2 is in a low concentration (measured as grams per liter) even at the surface so the energy escapes to space. On Earth the escape altitude was about 10.00 kilometers in 1850. Since then the CO2 concentration has increased about 130 ppm. That increase caused the escape altitude to increase to about 10.16 km (only about 160 meters). The lapse rate (the rate of decrease of temperature due to increasing altitude) is about 6C per kilometer. That means it is about 1C cooler at the new escape altitude. Less energy is emitted when it is cooler. In order to preserve conservation of energy, it has to heat up at the new escape altitude so that the same amount of energy is emitted. This increase then propagates down to the surface.
At 10km altitude there is little water vapor in the atmosphere since it is so cold. CO2 is the main greenhouse gas at that altitude. Since CO2 is the main gas at the escape altitude it exerts the most control over warming.
I have digressed a lot from your questions about vibrational energy. Does this information help? Unfortunately, I do not know of a good reference. For what it is worth, I teach introductory College Chemistry. We touch on energy exchange. I did not take quantum chemistry. I learned the most about the greenhouse effect reading Skeptical Science for the past 10 years.
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Doug_C at 06:15 AM on 4 December 2018SkS Analogy 16 - Arctic ice, sailboat keels, and wild weather
"A meandering jet stream allows deep troughs and ridges, allowing some areas to get unusually warm while other areas become unusually cold (read here, here, and here)"
Living in Edmonton Alberta a few years ago in mid winter we had one period where temperatures were well above zero when they could just as easily have been -30 C. While at the same time Eastern Canada and the US all the way down to Florida were in a deep freeze with very cold temperatures.
January 2014 Weather in Edmonton
Winter Storm of January 28-29, 2014
Climate change is not a smooth and gradual process to a slightly warmer Earth, it comes in chaotic jumps and pauses and can have devastating impacts.
Now living back in BC we've had two consecutive years where much of the province has been under a state of emergency starting with too much water too fast in the springs to not enough in the forests during summer heat waves. Large parts of this province have been consecutively drowned and then burned and we're certainly not alone with this weather chaos that comes as natural systems like the Jet Stream and other global scale systems are destabilizing and moving into a much different state.
Thousands of homes evacuated, highways closed in B.C. because of flooding
2018 British Columbia wildfires
Something that will in fact take centuries. No matter what we do we have left chaos for many generations to follow to deal with. And if we don't take this bull by the horns and very soon, the chaotic conditions this creates may overwhelm first complex human society then after a global collapse our species itself.
David Attenborough - Climate change and extinction
And yet we still have politicians here in Canada who demand we keep expanding the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.
Trans Mountain pipeline should go ahead even if consultation doesn’t end with consensus, Notley says
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SirCharles at 04:18 AM on 4 December 2018COP24: UN climate change conference, what’s at stake and what you need to know
Amazing. The BBC is citing climateactiontracker.org
=> Climate change: Where we are in seven charts and what you can do to help
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SirCharles at 03:58 AM on 4 December 2018COP24: UN climate change conference, what’s at stake and what you need to know
Great article. Many thanks for all that information.
=> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a6JeqX1BHI
Moderator Response:[DB] Please set image widths to below 500.
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scaddenp at 13:28 PM on 3 December 2018CO2 is coming from the ocean
The language is possibly a little loose here. The detail is in Manning and Keeling 2006 and I see that in the O2 consumption calculation, they used:
"O2 consumed is calculated assuming full combustion of all fossil fuel
types, and using O2:CO2 molar ratios for each fuel type from Keeling
(1988). That is, O2:CO2 is 1.17 for solid fuel; 1.44 for liquid fuel; 1.95
for gas fuel; and 1.98 for flared gas. (Cement manufacture does not
consume O2)." -
Hairy Turtle at 06:19 AM on 3 December 2018CO2 is coming from the ocean
Hi,
So the chemical reaction between hydrocarbons and oxygen are (hydrocarbon + 02 --> CO2 +H20). Lets take propane, for example. When combusting, we get (C3H8 + 5(O2) --> 3(CO2) + 4(H2O)). This article states that "Atmospheric oxygen is going down by the same amount as atmospheric CO2 is going up." From this equation, which I know is not the only type of fuel burned, CO2 is going up by 3 mols for every five mols of O2, so oxygen is burned faster than CO2 is emitted, which is the case for every hydrocarbon. This also doesn't account for impurities found in fossil fuels, like sulfur and nitrogen.
Im taking the 29 gigatons of CO2 emitted from this article. Doing some stoiciometry, we can find the number of tons of O2 that is being consumed by propane*.
29 gigatons = 2.9e+16 grams
2.9e+16 g / 44.01g = 6.5894115e+14 mols C02 produced, rounded to 6.6e+14 for significant figures.
(6.6e+14 mols CO2/3 mols CO2)(5 mols O2) = 1.1e+15 mols O2 consumed (sig figs)
1.1e+15 mols O2 is vastly greater than 6.6e+14 mols CO2.
In 1. Oxygen decrease, you say that the carbon part comes from reduced carbon compounds, and that the oxygen comes from the atmosphere, and I agree that burning fossil fuels uses oxygen from the atmosphere. But what I am not understanding is that O2 is decreasing at the same rate CO2 is increasing. O2 is consumed faster than CO2 is emitted, so O2 should be consumed at a 5:3 oxygen to carbon dioxide, which is not what your articles have been saying. If oxygen is decreasing by 5 ppm per year, CO2 should be increasing by 3 ppm, which is significantly different than the roughly 1:1 ratio suggested.
Where does this 2/5 discrepancy come from? Is there something I'm missing? If my math or reasoning is wrong, please show me where.
*I understand that propane is not the only type of fossil fuel burned, and is merely an example used in my argument. There will never be a 1-1 C02 to O2 ration when burning hydrocarbons, as is found in their balanced combustion reactions. The more complex hydrocarbons combust with a higher ratio of O2 to CO2 than propane, and simpler hydrocarbons combust at a lower ratio.
Thanks for your response.
B. M.
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Evan at 06:00 AM on 3 December 2018COP24: UN climate change conference, what’s at stake and what you need to know
Nice summary John!
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you, It's also chock full of embedded links to important stuff.
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dkeierleber at 04:10 AM on 3 December 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
PS I will read the 1971 NASA publication today to see how they explain it.
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dkeierleber at 04:05 AM on 3 December 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
I’m dense and not quite there yet. From Pierrehumbert Principles of Planetary Climate (p 221), “Since energy is conserved, the absorption or emission of a photon must be accompanied by a change in the internal energy state of the molecule. It is a consequence of quantum mechanics that the internal energy of a molecule can only take on values drawn from a finite set of possible energy states, the distribution of which is determined by the structure of the molecule.”
So molecules can only take on specific vibrational states, constrained by quantum mechanics. A molecule with 2 atoms has only 1 allowed vibrational state (3 x 2 – 5). GHG molecules have more allowed energy (vibrational) states (3 x the # of atoms -5 for linear molecules, -6 for nonlinear ones). But the energy states are still confined to whole multiples of the quanta that excites them. Just like a photon energy must match the energy gap between electron shells in order to be absorbed and boost the electron to a higher shell. The photon could not boost 2 electrons half way to the next shell. Quanta can’t be divided.
It is this quantum constraint that makes the GH work. If GHGs were excited by any LWR the atmosphere would go crazy. GHG molecules can only absorb energy in narrow bands---they are little receptors tuned to specific frequencies. So loosing part of their constrained vibrational energy via collisional transfer would leave them in a non-allowed quantum state.
Also from Pierrehumbert (p 227) collisional broadening of the absorption bands occurs because the kinetic energy of the collision is not quantized. So a molecule can borrow some of that energy to be boosted to the next allowed vibrational state by photons whose frequency (and thus energy) would ordinarily be outside their absorption band.
That is the missing part of MA Rodgers response on why Mars is so cold. The lack of water vapor is a big factor but so is the thin atmosphere---too thin to allow for collisional broadening. On Venus, collisional broadening extends high into the atmosphere. This is explained on the American Chemical Society’s post on Multi-Layer Model.
Digressing for a bit, in a sufficiently thick atmosphere, non GHG molecules can absorb photons during a collision. Nitrogen in Titan’s cold dense atmosphere, eg. That’s a different process called Continuum Absorption and also happens on Venus.
So, again, I can see the vibrational energy state of molecules being affected by a collision only if the process involved the emission of a lower energy photon to return the molecule to a lower vibrational state. Of course the problem may be my failure to understand the process and learning difficulties associated with my aging brain. Also, Pierrehumbert likely explains the process in the next 2 chapters but I struggle a bit with a graduate level climate science book. I was hoping for a short cut to understanding this
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:06 AM on 2 December 2018But their Emails!
Since the EELI is not the owner of the emails is it possible to legally require them to only present them as full email strings. No partial presentation allowed. And no paraphrasing allowed.
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nigelj at 07:52 AM on 2 December 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
dkeierleber @15, I came across this when reading up on the greenhouse effect some time back, appears to be written by a chemistry teacher.
chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/globalwarmA5.html
"Certain gases in the atmosphere have the property of absorbing infrared radiation. Oxygen and nitrogen the major gases in the atmosphere do not have this property. The infrared radiation strikes a molecule such as carbon dioxide and causes the bonds to bend and vibrate - this is called the absorption of IR energy. The molecule gains kinetic energy by this absorption of IR radiation. This extra kinetic energy may then be transmitted to other molecules such as oxygen and nitrogen (as they bump together) and causes a general heating of the atmosphere. Analogy: Think of a partially stretched "toy slinky" - if you bump the slinky, the energy of the bump is absorbed by the vibrations in the slinky."
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Ed the Skeptic at 07:37 AM on 2 December 2018Rapid climate changes more deadly than asteroid impacts in Earth’s past – study shows.
So was the extinction due to the initial cold caused by the mongo massive volcanic exhaust solids including carbon from burned fossil hydrocarbons blotting out of the sun, or the proposed latter GHG induced warming?
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:19 AM on 2 December 2018But their Emails!
Instead of trying to angle to get David's emails though some version of a FOIA, maybe Drs. Hughes and Overpeck could Publicly request tha David Schnare do the honorable things of being totally transparent "In the Public Interest he claims to be Concerned about" by sharing all of his emails - without reviewing them for potential Personal Confidential Interests.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:32 AM on 2 December 2018But their Emails!
SInce David Schnare claims to be performing a Public Service through this Public Process it seems reasonable that someone could do FOIA request for all of his emails, starting form the date he began using this Public Mechanism to perform this Public Service.
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MA Rodger at 05:59 AM on 2 December 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
dkeierleber @15,
Can I provide references? Not easily.
On line, perhaps Siegel & Howell (1971) may be of use to you. Alternatively, you may wish to narrow your enquiry within what is a piece of physics that doesn't get described within published literature in the manner that is understandable to the general reader. Or more correctly, I have never found anything on-line more complete than the likes of this overly-simplistic UCAR page.
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dkeierleber at 04:38 AM on 2 December 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
@14, MA Rodger
Can you provide references for your response?
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SirCharles at 00:25 AM on 2 December 2018But their Emails!
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0270467617707079?journalCode=bsta
Moderator Response:[DB] Please set image widths to below 500.
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SirCharles at 00:23 AM on 2 December 2018But their Emails!
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Tadaaa at 20:41 PM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
i do love the fact that worshippers at the "church of the eternally concerned" hold climate scientists to much higher standards than just about any other human - living or dead
I beleive even Einstein had issues with data conflicting with theory
the earth is round, evolution is the best theory that explains the diverstity of life on earth and AGW is the best thoery that explains the data - get over it
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Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 18:26 PM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
It's a bit disappointing that already, and even here, David Kirtley's concerns described above are being fulfilled- cherry-picking, misrepresentation, fake concern etc.
JP66 quoted a passage out of context, which was part of an email discussion that went on for several emails (10 July 2000 email by Ray Bradley, with replies by other people). The discussion was evidence of scientists doing science and working hard, talking together, to try to get to the bottom of what was happening 1000 years ago, well before thermometers and barometers.
Even if JP66 didn't look at the other emails in the discussion, they could hardly have missed key lines in the one he/she cherry-picked. After explaining some of the difficulties of sorting through data to get valuable information, Ray Bradley wrote:
In Ch 7 we will try to discuss some of these issues, in the limited space available. Perhaps the best thing at this stage is to simply point out the inherent uncertainties and point the way towards how these uncertainties can be reduced. Malcolm & I are working with Mike Mann to do just that.
That's leaving aside the fact that the email thread was yet another example showing the dedication of scientists. They were working late into the night. (Researchers do not stick to 9-5 hours. For a lot of them, like the ones writing these emails, it's a 24-7 commitment.)
Now if anyone is concerned about how scientists view or speak about fake sceptics, they hold them in the same contempt as I do. Who can blame them?
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Doug_C at 15:08 PM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
JP66 @8
Virtually every peer-reviewed article backs up the theory of athropogenic global warming mostly forced by massive fossil fuel use.
The 97% consensus on global warming
If you're straddling a fence then one half of your body is being crushed up against the wall of evidence.
The models being discussed in these taken out of context emails don't "prove" that anthropogenic global warming is happening, they are an attempt to model what we might expect to see in coming years given specific forcings. And even if the models could be discredited totally - which they haven't been - it doesn't change the basic science telling us why the globe is warming so rapidly and what is almost certainly the main forcing. Coarbon dioxide absorbing huge amounts of longwave EM ratiated by the Earth.
A forcing that has been understood for well over a century and more than a century ago climate sensitivity was calculated before we even understood the fundamental mechanism that causes the greenhouse effect. Namely photons being quantized to be absorbed by certain molecules but not others.
Svante Arrhenius - Climate Sensitivity
The idea is not to wait until there is nothing we can do about this growing global catastrophe, the signal rose above the noice over two decades ago. The idea is to let the overwhelming evidence on this existential issue determine policy. Something that still isn't happening not because the evidence is not far above a rational doubt, but because people skilled in hitting the scientific method where it's most vulnerable - in the constant application of skepticism - keep demanding 100% certainty before we change anything. There is zero genuine skepticism being applied by these people to their own positions.
That's not science, I'm not going to put in blunt words what it is but that is not science and there is nothing sacrosanct in playing silly bastards with an issue that is already killing large numbers of people every year and driving entire essential ecosystems like coral reefs to the edge of existance.
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nigelj at 10:27 AM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
JP66, the email you quote is a single email relating to climategate taken completely out of context, which shows the whole problem with these thefts / hacks. It's hard to even know what they are really saying, other than they appear to be arguing whether a paleo climate reconstruction of the medieval warm period is reliable, notice its in reference to "a" reconstruction.
I don't see what "theory" this undermines. Greenhouse gas theory, human impacts on climate,and future modelling of temperatures obviously do not rely on reconstructions of the medieval warm period.
What theory do you claim it undermines? What is it you think they are really saying?
Yes they are also talking about problems they are having with analysing the past, misakes that might have ocassionally been made, people attacking their work and how they should respond to this. Wouldn't any normal person do this? Why do you think this is somehow nefarious or abnormal?
If this is the so called smoking gun in climategate its laughable.
I do agree with you if the latest data and the accepted theory diverge then question the theory, but this is not apparent in this case. Also question whether the data is reliable, as it often turns out the data is wrong, for example the problems where the satellite temperature record originally showed a cooling, when it turned out there were problems with the satellite sensors or something.
Please note that many groups have analysed the MWP and found it was no warmer than temperatures over the last decade.
Moderator Response:[DB] Indeed, the first volume of the 4th National Climate Assessment released by the Trump Administration found this to be the case, with regards to the MWP:
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JP66 at 09:43 AM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
I need to put my thought in context. Science to me is sacrosanct. A key element of science is the understanding that when data contradicts a theory then one discusses the validity of said theory; one does NOT worry about responding to "the antis". As a scientist one should question the theory. That is incredibly simple and extremely damning to me.
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JP66 at 09:34 AM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
Avowed fence sitter here . . .
I am reading the entire thread of emails and following the discussion, but I am afraid it does not put climatologists in a good light when I read something like this . . .
But there are real questions to be asked of the paleo reconstruction. First, I should point out that we calibrated versus 1902-1980, then "verified" the approach using an independent data set for 1854-1901. The results were good, giving me confidence that if we had a comparable proxy data set for post-1980 (we don't!) our proxy-based reconstruction would capture that period well. Unfortunately, the proxy network we used has not been updated, and furthermore there are many/some/ tree ring sites where there has been a "decoupling" between the long-term relationship between climate and tree growth, so that things fall apart in recent decades....this makes it very difficult to demonstrate what I just claimed. We can only call on evidence from many other proxies for "unprecedented" states in recent years (e.g. glaciers, isotopes in tropical ice etc..). But there are (at least) two other problems — Keith Briffa points out that the very strong trend in the 20th century calibration period accounts for much of the success of our calibration and makes it unlikely that we would be able be able to reconstruct such an extraordinary period as the 1990s with much success (I may be mis-quoting him somewhat, but that is the general thrust of his criticism). Indeed, in the verification period, the biggest "miss" was an apparently very warm year in the late 19th century that we did not get right at all. This makes criticisms of the "antis" difficult to respond to (they have not yet risen to this level of sophistication, but they are "on the scent").
Moderator Response:[DB] For context, if you are going to quote an email exchange here, please also include who sent the email and to whom they sent it, including the date. That will enable others to help you improve your understanding of the science in question.
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nigelj at 05:35 AM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
Curiously enough I was reading this article at the end of a television episode of Dr Who, where the Dr time travelled back to the time of King James and the persecution of so called witches. I thought it an ironic sort of coincidence.
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nigelj at 05:12 AM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
What you have with the EELI and other climate sceptics groups is a marriage of convenience between fossil fuel interests, libertarian small government fanatics, scientific cranks, conspiracy theory people, ignoramuses, and hired guns. Read any climate sceptics website and you find these characters lurking.
Their propaganda is nothing more than personal attacks, material taken out of context, and bullying. They are not genuine sceptics or whistle blowers, they traffic in muck raking. They have no shame, no conscience, and no ethical standards, and know nothing about anything of value.
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David Kirtley at 02:47 AM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
Good catch, John. Changes made.
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John Hartz at 01:51 AM on 1 December 2018But their Emails!
David Kirtley: Recommend that you change the acronym for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute from E&E to EELI. The acronym E&E is used by a E&E News - respected news organization focusing on energy and the environment.
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Sunspot at 20:56 PM on 30 November 2018But their Emails!
It's really quite simple: Unless we stop burning fossil fuels, civilization will collapse from the consequences of Global Warming. But if we stopped burning fossil fuels immediately, civilization would collapse before the end of the week. Of course, this is not a real choice, we all get up in the morning and pretend that what we do isn't ruining the future. We are all lying to ourselves.
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Doug_C at 20:00 PM on 30 November 2018But their Emails!
"One wonders, if the shoe were on the other foot, and the private correspondence and paperwork of E&E were made available, what might the public learn about this “charity."
Probably that its funding comes from individuals and corporations closely associated with the fossil fuel sector like the Kochs and Exxon Mobil.
This is the world turned inside out, where professionals carrying out their duty as part of an endeavour to understand the natural world in a way that has great benefit to everyone must constantly defend themselves from a very tiny yet incredibly well funded front group.
And this is a multi phased attack on the science, not only is the intent to get more raw material that can then be feed into the widespread disinformation machine created by the fossil fuel sector, it will also have a chlling effect on scientists who will then be looking over their shoulders for the next attack.
And it also encourages people who don't want any change in their lives to become ever more resistant to change as they are convinced once again the "evil elites" are out to get them.
This will only end when the fossil fuel sector no longer has the millions of dollars to spend fueling this disinformation machine. The British Royal Society asked Exxon Mobil to please stop funding climate change denial over a decade ago, but the only thing that has changed is the money from Exxon Mobil to the network of denial "think tanks" has gone "dark" now.
And as long as the money keeps flwoing to these groups the garbage will keep shooting out of them. 88 people just died in a climate change related disaster in California and many more are unaccounted for and the catastrophic impacts of a hothouse world are sobering to say the least. The IPCC has just made clear, we have very little time left to take real measures to avoid a world that will almost certainly be unable to support our current population plus some.
And the people who take money from the fossil fuel sector still try and prevent those real measures from being implemented because it would mean they would have to find another occupation.
There will always be a need for people who fill the roll scientists do now, do we really have a need for people who distort reality in such a way it places our entire species at risk of extinction...
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Doug Bostrom at 15:50 PM on 30 November 2018But their Emails!
Gunslingers tend to have what are these days politely called "chaotic lifestyles" and Schnare appears to coincide with both of those attributes.
If there's a single good thing that's come out of the whole episode, it may be the photochop in this article. :-)
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Eclectic at 13:22 PM on 30 November 2018Discussing climate change on the net
Sunspot @21 ~ intrigued by your earlier comment, I chased up the comments column of a Yahoo climate article.
The article was quite fair and reasonable (on AGW effects) . . . but Oh My . . . the comments column was a Niagara of 1- to 3-sentence denialist mini-rants. Maybe 98% denialist? Absolutely no way could that represent a randomized cross-section of opinion.
Is Yahoo being a magnet to half the crazy galoots in the USA? Do the crazy galoots simply join in there (having been rejected by their friends & relatives) in order to air their opinions & vent their anger? And yes, one could well believe that some of them are there as "paid actors" . . . or, in this modern automated age, perhaps many of them are simply Heartland-funded bots?
What is not clear to me is Yahoo's business plan, in all this nonsense. To gain reading clicks by stirring up the crazies, allowing them to vent in an echo-chamber . . . and keep them watching/clicking?
In comparison, the comments columns of WattsUp are almost half-sane. Yes, about a third of the posters are so intellectually insane that they totally dismiss the global warming mechanism of CO2/GHG's. And three-quarters of them are rabid political extremists, to whom the term charity (let alone the word tax) is anathema. A further one-fifth are such victims of their own Motivated Reasoning, that they say that around 90% of recent rapid global warming comes from 70-year and/or 1000-year oceanic cycles (or from cosmic rays causing clouding or unclouding . . . or whatever).
I don't bother closely reading the WattsUp articles ~ they are mostly trash & sour-grapes "spin". But I do skim through the comments super-fast, lookin for "names" with a track record of sane intelligence (names such as Nick Stokes, Mosher, and a few others also worth reading) ~ posters who are cool oases in that intellectual desert.
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Sunspot at 09:22 AM on 30 November 2018Discussing climate change on the net
While it is tempting to think that something like Yahoo comments presents a randomized cross-section of opinion, unfortunately, like most things on the internet it seems, this is far from the truth. Comments are arranged to elicit response and keep me on the page. And when Yahoo doesn't like what I am saying, the page I am on will stop getting new comments from anyone else, and the link will disappear from the main page. All clear manipulation. I call them out occasionally for it, for all the good that does. I have never seen any mention of this anywhere, but I can see it happening all the time.
I do like the free email, though... :-)
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MA Rodger at 08:39 AM on 30 November 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
dkeiereber @13,
Gas molecules do increasingly whiz about with increasing temperature. If the gas contains polyatomic molecules (like CO2) it will have a higher Specific Heat Capacity as there will also be energy being absorbed into extra rotation and vibration as temperature increases. The vibrational energy can be transferred to other molecules/atoms as kinetic, rotational or vibrational energy but can also result in the emission of a photon. So the answer to your question "Can the higher quantum state of an excited GHG molecule be transferred to another molecule through a collision?" is 'Yes.'
And the opposite can occur; a collision or a photon of the correct wavelength can set a polyatomic molecule vibrating in a particular mode.
Quantum rules apply to vibration (and rotation) so the photon is always of the same wavelength, abet the rotational energy and kinetic energy do create small variations (broadening) in wavelength for emitted/absorbed photons.
Relative to the energy transferred between molecules/atoms in a gas, the emitting/absorption of photons are a rare events and most absorbed photons will become added to the energy in the gas rather than being immediately emitted as another photon. -
dkeierleber at 05:01 AM on 30 November 2018Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry
Pretty sure this is on topic. I’m struggling with the details of the physics. BTW, I thought the video was good but it didn’t go far enough. My question is whether the absorption of infrared radiation (IR) by greenhouse gas molecules directly warms the air. I have seen an explanation regarding the hot atmosphere giving off IR. But, since 1859, we know that the majority of the atmosphere doesn’t absorb IR.So I'm assuming it can't emit IR. The atmosphere isn't a black body (maybe a gray body).
GHGs absorb IR because they have at least three atoms and two bonds allowing more than one quantum vibrational state. A GHG molecule is boosted to a higher state only by a photon with the right energy. The energy must match the energy gap between two allowed quantum states of the molecule.
Similarly, it seems the molecule could only emit a photon of the same energy and return to its base state. Some of the emitted photons will be reabsorbed by the Earth causing further warming.
But gas molecules are also in kinetic motion---whizzing about. The faster the molecules move---the more kinetic energy they have---the warmer the air is. Can the higher quantum state of an excited GHG molecule be transferred to another molecule through a collision? I know that the kinetic energy isn’t quantized so it seems that in order for that to happen the excited molecule would have to emit a lower energy photon, to return to its base state, as part of the energy transferring collision---the transferred kinetic energy plus the energy of the photon would have to equal the energy gap between the two allowed quantum states---kind of the reverse of collisional broadening of the absorption bands.
I hope I’ve made my question clear and I’d really like to know the answer.
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