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SirCharles at 14:05 PM on 20 December 2018Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.
How does that fit to the following article in Nature?
=> Global warming will happen faster than we think
Seems like this "little ice age" myth will never die out.
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scaddenp at 12:16 PM on 20 December 2018Climate's changed before
I should also add that scientists are inordinately attached to conservation of energy. You cant magically increase the Ocean Heat Content without adding the energy from somewhere. The change in GHG easily account for this. Pretty hard to figure a way of doing this from a change in any known natural forcing.
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scaddenp at 12:03 PM on 20 December 2018Climate's changed before
"This myth-busting deals with natural climate variability, yes? Isn't the uncertainty about ECS exactly directly related to that?"
Um, no? Using past climate to estimate ECS is plagued by the uncertainties in both estimates of past global temperature and past forcings. Naive estimates of TCR from short-term measurement do suffer from internal variability (not to be confused with natural climate variability in forcings).
Model estimates of ECS must deal with feedback - and the range there is largely due to the difficulties with clouds in current hardware. Ie not only how much does cloudiness change with a change in temperature but also change in high-level versus low level cloud (one is a positive feedback, the other is a negative feedback). Again, all of this is discusssed at length, with references in the IPCC WG1, (see table 9.5 for instance).
"Natural variability" is of two kinds - one is the internal variability due to uneven heating of wet planet. This is essentially weather and evens out over a 30 year time scale (hence climate being 30 year averages).
The other is natural climate variability due to changes in natural forcings - predominantly solar (both in strength and orbitally-induced variations in latitudinal distribution), and volcano aerosols.
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David Kirtley at 07:12 AM on 20 December 2018From the eMail Bag: A Deep Dive Into Polar Ice Cores
Here is an interesting write-up on a new paper: How complexity science can quickly detect climate record anomalies. And here is the paper: Anomaly Detection in Paleoclimate Records Using Permutation Entropy.
This isn't dealing with CO2 measurements in ice cores, but rather temperature measurements from H and O isotopes within the ice. What is interesting is that it is possible to get very fine-grained sampling of these isotopes, up to 40 readings per year's worth of ice! The problem now is that this is too much information to manage. The purpose of the paper is to use information theory/complexity science to process the data more easily. (Or something.)
Compared to previous ice core data, which allowed for analysis every 5 centimeters, the WAIS Divide core permits analysis at millimeter resolution.
“One of the exciting thing about ice core research in the last decade is we’ve developed these lab systems to analyze the ice in high resolution,” says Tyler Jones, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Quite a while back we were limited in our ability to analyze climate because we couldn’t get enough data points, or if we could it would take too long. These new techniques have given us millions of data points, which is rather difficult to manage and interpret without some new advances in our [data] processing.”
I don't think it would be possible to sample the ice cores in the same manner for CO2 readings. But even if it were, everything I've written in this post would still be in play, so that an extremely fine-grained CO2 record wouldn't actually give you a true look at CO2 on a yearly or monthly basis, as in the Keeling Curve.
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scaddenp at 06:19 AM on 20 December 2018Antarctica is gaining ice
The Realclimate comment does the calculation to show how small the geothermal component is, even with ridiculously unphysical assumptions. Furthermore, if you look at the references behind your links, you will note the important comment that geothermal flux is not increasing - there are physical constraints around the rock properties in play. When you are looking at change in Antarctica, geothermal influence isnt important.
The biggest player in Antarctica is the loss of the buttressing ice shelves undermined by warming adjacent ocean (see also here), which speeds glacial loss.
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michael sweet at 23:25 PM on 19 December 2018The Key To Slowing Global Warming
Econuke:
Welcome to Skeptical Science. You have chosen an interesting subject to hang your hat on.
Unfortunately, when you introduce yourself with obviously ignorant statements like "Reactors using water as a coolant and moderator, i.e. every power reactor in the world if I recall correctly" the rest of your comment does not seem very convincing. This Wikipedia article describes existing sodium cooled reactors similar to your fantasy reactors. Some of these were built as power reactors.
Similarly, a first sentence that insults another poster invites insults back. If you are polite you will receive polite responses.
It is customary at Skeptical Science to link to scientific sources to support your claims. I noticed that you neglected to link any resources at all in you post. Try to raise your game.
You could help us here. For the past several years I have asked all the nuclear supporters who post here to write an article that describes the usefulness of nuclear power. Skeptical Science would welcome a well written article citing the scientific literature that supports nuclear power. Unfortunately, no-one thinks it is worth the effort to write such an article. Perhaps it is because the scientific literature does not support nuclear power. The article should address the issues raised by Abbott 2011.
Ask the people of Fukushima about nuclear safety. Imagining that a technology with no existing pilot plants could help with a problem that demands immediate action is folly.
I will not address the remainder of your post. It is well known that nuclear power is uneconomic. Power from existing nuclear plants is the most expensive power. New plants cannot be built on time and on a budget.
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RedBaron at 22:51 PM on 19 December 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
@KAllan,
No. That's just the change in albedo. Ice reflects more sunlight, and water absorbs it instead.
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MA Rodger at 20:25 PM on 19 December 2018Heat from the Earth’s interior does not control climate
PetroCurious @71,
The centre of the earth is incredibly hot but this is achieved because it is well insulated rather than being supplied with a big power input. So think 'candle' rather than 'stove'. And the 'home' has no windows to let warming sunlight in - it is a concrete bunker, well insulated and very very hot inside.
But we are concerned with the outside surface temperature of the bunker, heated by the sun. Even without a mechanism analagous to the GHG effect, the average temperature of the outer skin of the bunker will be about 250K due to the sunlight heating the outside, although on the outside surface the nights will be cold without a GHG effect, heated only by the warmth left from the day within the concrete, and not forgetting that candle.
The candle, while it raises the interior of the bunker to fantastical temperatures because of the insulating concrete, is only supplying 80W which at the surface of a 10 metre cubes bunker is only 0.1W/sq m, enough if the sun stopped-for-ever to heat the outer skin of the concrete to just 36K above absolute zero. But with the T^4 relationship in:-
Radiate energy = (Emissivity) * (Stefan-Boltzmann constant) * (Temperature)4 * (Area),
with the sun heating the skin, the candle only raises the average outer temperature from 250K to 250.02K, a trivial increase.
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JohnSeers at 19:23 PM on 19 December 2018Heat from the Earth’s interior does not control climate
71 @PetroCurious
"if the Stove is perpetually on, at some point it will have an affect on the overall temperature of the home, no?"
Your question is not quite defined enough as you need to state more precisely what you mean and the starting conditions. What do you mean by "affect" the temperature? Go up? Go down? Stay the same? All are possible in the scenario you have described.
Perhaps what you are thinking is the temperature will go up? That depends on the starting temperature and the rate of loss of the heat from the house. There is a theoretical equilibrium point where the heat being lost is equal to the heat the stove is providing. The house will reach this equilibrium temperature eventually.
Or are you suggesting the house does not lose any heat because the "windows and doors are closed"? It will still lose heat through radiation.
Does that answer your question?
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KAllan at 19:18 PM on 19 December 2018Arctic sea ice has recovered
I note that in the Footnote to this article it is stated that, " When the sea ice diminishes, more heat passes into the oceans." Science seems to be at odds with this statement. I think that the absence of explanation as to where the heat comes from that passes into the oceans can cause confusion. A layperson might argue that the reason for putting ice cubes in a drink is to cool the drink by removing heat from it that results in the ice cubes melting. Clearly, the heat passes from the drink to the ice cubes, yet it is stated that the analogous oceans have heat passing into them. The layperson is left to assume that this heat must come from the melting ice which is a conundrum.
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econuke at 19:06 PM on 19 December 2018The Key To Slowing Global Warming
nigelJ,
It's rather rude to call someone a fanatic for understanding the potential of nuclear power.
Reactors using water as a coolant and moderator, i.e. every power reactor in the world if I recall correctly, are not the only kinds of reactor designs. I liken them to wood fired steam engines that should really be phased out of use. The vast majority of their construction cost and time comes from the redundancies and physical requirements of keeping water a liquid at nearly 200atm or more and 300c.
Other designs, such as molten salt reactors, don't have those requirements. This makes them much smaller, much simpler, much faster to build, and therefore much cheaper than water reactors. All safety concerns related to maintaining a giant pressure cooker also disappear. This means they would be even safer than nuclear's already unrivaled safety record.
Alternative designs are able to be used for producing synthetic fuels because of their much higher operating temperatures. This allows them to serve as industrial heat sources for all sorts of uses, such as ammonia production or synthesizing CO2 into methane, which can be further processed into liquid fuels.
Safety concerns of nuclear power are grossly overstated, but the general public has no concept of radioactivity. There was a NOAA map of the Tsunami's wave energy being passed around as a radiation map, but almost no one seemed to notice that the key was in centimeters rather than anything related to radiation. I imagine if you gave most people a geiger counter for a week, they'd have a nervous breakdown.
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nigelj at 16:52 PM on 19 December 2018Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.
The article is a good explanation, and useful, but once again we are in the mode of explaining and defending. A political commentator in my country noted "explaining is losing" - a perceptive observation. That's not to say we should never explain, but I'm sure people would understand his point.
Somehow, and I don't know how, those concerned about agw (and social justice) need to set the agenda and get more on the front foot and a lot more hard hitting.
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Josbert Lonnee at 12:14 PM on 19 December 2018A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming
Here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_scale_meteorology
I read:
"Low-pressure areas and their related frontal zones occur on the leading edge of a trough within the Rossby wave pattern, while high-pressure areas form on the back edge of the trough."
I did not read that in this article, or did I miss it?
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PetroCurious at 11:59 AM on 19 December 2018Heat from the Earth’s interior does not control climate
Please explain if my analogy incorrect. There is a home, all the windows and doors are closed. There is a Stove on in the Kitchen. Isn't if fair to say that while the Stove can't heat the rest of the house to the Stove Temperature, if the Stove is perpetually on, at some point it will have an affect on the overall temperature of the home, no?
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Wol at 10:08 AM on 19 December 2018Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change
>>Alonerock @2, good list. Thank's for mentioning population. If we don't meet Paris goals, and we are stupid enough to still be burning fossil fuels, it will help if population stops growing and falls. Ideally I think we should aim as an immediate priority to get the fertility rate down to something like 1.5 - 2 so a bit below replacement rate. It won't make much difference by 2050, but the difference by 2100 is profound with population trending down in absolute terms.<<
Exactly.
Population control is up there with religion as being almost taboo to bring up.
Millions of words are printed about climate change but almost never is overpopulation mentioned, yet it is arguably the most important part of the equation. We are way past the sustainability of the planet even leaving overpopulation out of the argument. Malthus may have been off by a hundred years but incremental v exponential is always going to end up in one way. And we are not starting with a virgin earth but one with a substantial proportion of its capital already gone or un-reclaimable.
It's not only the popular press that refuses to tackle the fundamental issue: New Scientist is currently running a series on climate change with barely a word about population.
Some say, as Jeremy Clarkson would have it, that it would take too long for population control to have any effect, but without it in some form the problem will never be solved.
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nigelj at 09:51 AM on 19 December 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
Blind creature that buries head in sand named after Donald Trump. A newly discovered blind and burrowing amphibian is to be officially named Dermophis donaldtrumpi, in recognition of the US president’s climate change denial.
The name was chosen by the boss of EnviroBuild, a sustainable building materials company, who paid $25,000 (£19,800) at an auction for the right. The small legless creature was found in Panama and EnviroBuild’s Aidan Bell said its ability to bury its head in the ground matched Donald Trump’s approach to global warming.
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Doug_C at 06:32 AM on 19 December 2018Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.
It all comes down to relative radiative forcings and right now the positive radiative forcing by rapidly increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide with the continued emissions of billions of tons of the gas a year overwhelms whatever negative forcing there may be from solar and other activities.
This is what denial is all about, pretending this forcing simply doesn't exist.
Unless someone comes up with a way to invalidate the Standard Model of how particles behave and interact then carbon dioxide is still going to absorb the EM radiation that is constantly being emitted by the Earth's surface and re-radiate about half of that intercepted heat back to the Earth's surface. The more CO2 we put into the air the warmer the Earth is going to get.
But because of the amount of money that is still tied up in the fossil fuel sector there are still some major palyers who will try and pull any rabbit they can from the hat to magically make this dynamic go away. And they just love the "The next Ice Age is Coming!!!" rabbit for the drama it evokes.
Climate change is not going away and every year we get closer to tipping points that are truly nasty in ecological, social and financial terms.
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nigelj at 05:41 AM on 19 December 2018Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.
The following graph is a reconstruction of solar irradiance (derived I believe from sunspot activity) from 1600 to approx. 2015. It's from the Sorce website and the sorce satellite system has been monitoring solar irradiance directly for about a decade now.
Solar irradiance does appear to have been generally lower during the little ice age, but it's only a rather approximate correlation just eye balling it. Solar irradiance increased from 1900 - 1980 and has been falling slightly since then, so shows no correlation with the modern global warming period.
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blatz at 03:20 AM on 19 December 2018New research, December 3-9, 2018
Thank you Ari.
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Sunspot at 02:10 AM on 19 December 2018Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.
There are two important points about the relationship between Global Warming and Solar Activity. Lots of deniers, for some reason, claim that Global Warming is caused by increased Solar Activity, but we know that the sun has been slightly "cooler" than normal for the past few decades, so obviously this explanation for the recent warming is eliminated. But the important part of the story is that the sun is doing us a temporary favor, and being kind to us as we continue to pile on the CO2 blankets. But this will not last, and the return of an active, occasionally angry sun will just add to the heat. Which won't help at all...
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Riduna at 11:13 AM on 18 December 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
As far as it goes, the Paris Accord us a good beginning but among the questions it did not address was how we will handle a population increase of 2 billion by 2050, or the effect of that increase on the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. We need to curb population growth now – or be prepared to see a large portion of that increase perish due to lack of essential amenities.
More importantly – and pressing – is the need to independently monitor the source of our greenhouse gas emissions because the time will come – in the not too distant future – when it may become necessary to impose international trade and financial sanctions on those responsible for the highest emissions.
The alternative is to accept the ‘inevitability’ of global warming which triggers destructive climate change, impairment of carbon sinks and uncontrollable methane emissions from the Arctic. Either countries like Russia and China, India and the USA reduce their carbon emissions in a timely manner to levels which avoid such threats or they are compelled to do so.
My guess is that resort to sanctions will not be necessary once the effects of dangerous climate change are observed. Unfortunately it may then be too late to avert their further development, resulting in catastrophic outcomes. So, the sooner major emitters are ‘encouraged’ to rapidly reduce their emissions and control population growth, the better.
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Ari Jokimäki at 08:30 AM on 18 December 2018New research, December 3-9, 2018
Hello blatz, there is no place that lists all the papers. There are thousands of scientific journals, most of which can publish a climate/climate change related paper occasionally. I use a RSS feed reader where I have set up new paper feeds of close to hundred journals. If you want to see more, my suggestion would be that you should set up RSS feed reader with your own selection of journals.
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nigelj at 06:21 AM on 18 December 2018Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change
The other issue is things like universal health care and better minimum wages might be 'socialist' but most countries have such policies, basic human welfare is important, and they are popular in America with the majority public according to polling. Its only the GOP that oppose them on principle and gerrymander electoral districts and get up to other tricks to push their own policies against the wishes of the majority. At some point the Democrats have to stand up to all this, or they are nothing.
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nigelj at 06:06 AM on 18 December 2018Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change
Alonerock @2, good list. Thank's for mentioning population. If we don't meet Paris goals, and we are stupid enough to still be burning fossil fuels, it will help if population stops growing and falls. Ideally I think we should aim as an immediate priority to get the fertility rate down to something like 1.5 - 2 so a bit below replacement rate. It won't make much difference by 2050, but the difference by 2100 is profound with population trending down in absolute terms.
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nigelj at 06:00 AM on 18 December 2018Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change
Red Baron, I understand your point of view and believe me I have wondered the same about the wisdom of linking environmental and social policies. I'm a political centrist and pragmatist.
However heres the issue that is making me reconsider. The GOP has a history of opposing everything and anything the Democrats have suggested on climate change (and everything else) unless it involves cutting taxes and other Republican beliefs.
The GOP opposed all Obamas climate policies with or without social programmes attached. The Democrats have ended up watering their ideas down so much to try to please the GOP they end up standing for nothing. This was Hilarys problem. I think they have given up in frustration, and are going for everything they want adding a few things they know they may have to compromise on, hoping to get something close through the senate.
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RedBaron at 05:25 AM on 18 December 2018Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change
- "Making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the US, helping other countries transition to carbon-neutral economies.
- Provide all members of society a job guarantee programme to assure a living wage job.
- Basic income programmes and universal health care."
This is where Democrats shoot themselves in the foot every time, and why US has such pushback. They have never put forth a workable plan and even this one can't work, because they insist on using AGW as a tool to make completely unrelated major socialist changes to the US economy.
In many of my conversations with denialists, it always comes up ultimately. First they try to deny AGW. But at some point it becomes a socialist plot, ot a communist plot, or a Chinese plot, or a Russian plot, or Al Gore's plot...to destroy the US form of capitalism and substitute socialism.
And there it is yet again...... universal health care and various socialist welfare programs attached directly to AGW mitigation strategy.
As long as the democrats continue with unworkable plans like this, the rest of the country will be fighting them tooth and nail.
In the good side, at least they finally figured out we must sequester carbon. That oversite on previous plans made certain their plans were literally impossible to actually solve the problem. However, they still haven't figured out to stop attaching welfare programs to AGW mitigation.
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alonerock at 05:19 AM on 18 December 2018Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change
A few non-scholarly comments regarding possible misunderstandings and potential solutions :
Climate Change Denial
Many people exhibit a complacent, if not an outright attitude of denial toward human-induced climate change. The following list contains many of the fundamental reasons behind this irrational behavior:
-Ignorance of the complex science required to understand this serious, complicated issue.
-Contradictory information disseminated by the media.
-Misinformation distributed by politicians and scientific imposters with deep fossil fuel interests.
-The threat is not immediate. It has been accumulating over a long period of time.
-There exists no historical precedent with which to compare.
-The cause is not derived from a specific, tangible enemy. Nearly all humans are collectively responsible for the problem.
-There is a tremendous misunderstanding regarding temporal and spatial scales.
-There is a failure of the experts to properly educate the public regarding the urgency of the problem.
-There is little direct, noticeable impact.
-Environmental problems are typically too disturbing and unpopular for the general public to address.
-Why should one entity spend resources to reduce pollution when others that are contributing a far greater problem do nothing.
-Many people have a passive attitude- expecting others to fix the problem.
-Unclear links exist between costs to solve problems and the benefits.
-Many elderly people do not care since they will not be around to experience the consequences.
-There is a strong unwillingness of people in general to change their lifestyles or specifically, to sacrifice their perceived luxuries.
-Lack of desire to participate and get involved at Local, Regional, State, National and Global levels which would provide or lead to exposure to other ideas and ways of looking at problems.Some potential Climate Change Solutions:
The present state of climate conditions presents out society with complex, serious moral, social, environmental, economic and political issues unparalleled in history.
The anthropogenically-induced climate problems are reversable if approached with wisdom in a timely fashion.
This crisis will not be solved by 195 countries arguing over multiple issues. It can be best solved by the United States implementing important environmentally related regulations, which will ultimately force other countries to participate.
This horrific problem has become so large, it has evolved into a tragedy of the commons in which others share or will share (future generations) in the cost, in addition to those who actually created the problem. Make no mistake, this climate change is not a liberal left or conservative right issue. It is a species survival issue. It is a species survival issue, including humans.
If the grave finality of this crisis is to be solved, the following measures could be implemented in a timely fashion by the United States, in an effort to reduce energy consumption, improve energy efficiency, improve/expand existing clean energy sources and search for new clean energy sources, otherwise the problem will soon be irreversible and out of control for the next generation:
-No couples should produce more than two children. Tax incentives/penalties can be used to encourage this concept. The penalties can be earmarked for R&D of clean energy.
- The U.S. should implement a C-tax program. The solution is not simply for bigger government and increased taxes. Governmental officials, influenced by special interest groups and lobbyists, lack the knowledge or integrity for successfully managing such C-tax programs. This can be consumer driven. A large fee on fossil fuel businesses implemented at port of entry as well as domestic mines and wells would ensure that the fossil fuel businesses are paying their fair share for their cost to society. The taxes due to the increase at the pumps could then be distributed equally among all legal US residents annually. The wealthier people have a greater C-footprint and can afford the tax. The middle- and lower-class people will receive money back (which would likely exceed the taxes they paid in) which they can then spend and stimulate the economy. Likely, due to the rising cost of fuel, they would spend a substantial portion of the dividends on vehicles of increased efficiency, better insulation in homes, improved heating systems, more efficient appliances, etc. This would further drive R&D of businesses regarding improved energy as well as giving entrepreneurs incentive to invest is such endeavors while unleashing a huge faction of innovations in technology. Industries will compete far more aggressively with far improved results without “help” from the government. The differing prices of food, goods and services based on their C-footprint will cause a shift in what consumers purchase, so the market will drive a healthier and swifter result.
Cap and trade, as some have suggested as a wise choice, would likely fail in its objective because it will enable rich businesses/nations to not reduce their emissions because they can afford otherwise. Furthermore, the cap and trade scheme cannot be implemented for all types of pollution (personal vehicles, home heating oil, etc.).
-Huge tariffs must be placed on foreign imports for countries that do not engage in similar environmental policies as that of the United States. This will make competition fair and more importantly, create tremendous incentive for foreign countries (China, India, etc.) to reduce their C footprint as well. This will stimulate all markets/innovations, foreign and domestic.
-Improved forestry and agricultural practices (i.e. no-till) must be encouraged.
-Increase individual contributions; car-pooling, improved recycling/re-using, food waste reduction.
-Support local framer’s markets and other businesses. Educate people from early age on.
-Reduce travel, particularly air travel and reduce vehicle travel speed
-Reduce meat consumption overall and eating larger percentage of wild game (deer, fish, turkey, etc.)
-Sustain vehicles in good condition (tire pressure, tune-ups, filters, exhaust, etc.) and require vastly improved fuel mileage.
-Reduce thermostat in cold months and limit air conditioning in warm months.
-Insurance companies can influence climate-based decisions due to their cost from associated health problems (cardiac/respiratory etc.).
-Law enforcement can influence climate-based decisions due to direct correlations between hotter temperatures and violence.
-Implement zoning/planning regulations at local levels to encourage a smaller C-footprint; lights off at night in residences, encourage smaller houses, narrower driveways and roads, smaller lawns, reduce street lighting, lights off after business hours, etc.
-Vote for politicians who have no fossil fuel interests and who care about issues rather than simply devoting their efforts into getting elected and then getting re-elected.
-Get involved personally and participate at all levels. VOTE! Write senators, representatives, governors and presidents. Write articles in newspapers. Exercise consumer pressure. As Winston Churchill once suggested, if people do not have courage and participate, all of their other virtues are wasted.
Surely many other wonderful ideas can be considered. We enjoy what we have today because of people who came before us who were wise stewards of the land. Likewise, we have an obligation to future generations. It is all about quality of life and leaving the place better than how we found it. -
nigelj at 04:50 AM on 18 December 2018Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change
Ambitious but persuasive. Look at it in context. The ozone hole problem was simple, only really affected refrigeration and air conditioning and was resolved with a cap and trade scheme.
The climate problem is complex, affects most of the economy, and requires multi layer solutions including mitigation, negative emissions and adaptation. It's very hard to see how you resolve all these issues with a singular stand alone mechanism like cap and trade or a carbon tax. Inevitably you need a top down lead government plan that combines several mechanisms.
However without a price on carbon, measures would be ad hoc and arbitrary. and I think theres still a place for a carbon tax and dividend sort of scheme.
In an ideal world I prefer market solutions, but its just not appropriate for the climate issue. In addition individuals wont do much until they see a concerted effort to transform the grid, and leadership from government and industry. It's human nature and individual economic rationalism.
Funding can't really come out of taxation. The GOP have recently cut taxes and increased the deficit so the money isn't there. This has eliminated the ideal way of funding such a scheme. This has effectively been an attempt to limit governments ability to do anything, but all it really does is make it harder to fix the climate problem amongst other problems. So you are left with "quantitative easing" as was used for public works projects in the 1930's. Not ideal, but so be it.
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nigelj at 04:27 AM on 18 December 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
I would be interested to know how long after a sustained drop, or levelling off in emissions (say ten years) before this would show up in the keeling curve?
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Evan at 01:51 AM on 18 December 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
Don't mean to nitpick, but in the article "UN climate accord 'inadequate' and lacks urgency, experts warn" there is the statement, "The latest figures show carbon dioxide emissions are still rising." This is, of course, correct, but the more urgent message is that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are not just increasing, but they are accelerating upwards. In time the oceans will likely begin taking up less carbon and the biosphere will begin releasing more carbon as positive feedbacks kick in. So although agreements are written to regulate emissions, those interested in monitoring how we're doing should use atmospheric CO2 levels as a better metric of how we're doing, because in the end analysis it is CO2 concentrations that will determine how climate changes, and not emission rates. I realize that the only things we can effectrively regulate are emissions, but because scientists themselves are uncertain about ocean uptake rates and the point where positive feedbacks will kick in, we must always be looking at the Keeling curve (curve of atmospheric CO2 concentrations) as an indication of just how well we're doing.
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blatz at 01:50 AM on 18 December 2018New research, December 3-9, 2018
I really enjoy seeing these posts every week. Thanks! This is a "selection" of papers. Is there anywhere online that lists ALL of the papers released? Somewhere I don't need to pay.
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MA Rodger at 18:38 PM on 17 December 2018Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2
alonerock @69,
It may be worth further clarifying what is meant in the OP Item 3 by:-
"Indeed, growth in atmospheric emissions probably has not exceeded anthropogenic emissions since the early 1880s, approximately the time anthropogenic emissions reached the equivalent of 0.45 ppmv of atmospheric concentration"
The early 1880s saw a period of volcanic activity which affected the natural carbon cycle for some years. Ice core data shows CO2 levels rising annually at rates above 0.5ppm(v)/year for half a decade and this cannot be attributed to mankind as the emissions from all anthropogenic sources were less than that level. Thus the high CO2 increase in the 1880s cannot be attributed wholly to anthropogenic sources & the argument of Item 3 only applies post-1880s.
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nigelj at 11:47 AM on 17 December 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
I wish someone would explain how a trade imbalance of a surplus of imports over exports is a bad thing. I mean it doesn't appear to be hurting America, and looks like a win win for them. I would be more concerned if its the other way around. The White House appears full of economic numb skulls. I would also be more concerned about the federal deficit.
Unfortunately exporting coal also puts America in the group of countries with some climate change policies (those that have survived under Trump) who export their climate problem. Just seems like a fiasco to me.
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alonerock at 10:40 AM on 17 December 2018Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2
Excellent! Thanks very much for your clearification. I was confused because I would consider atmospheric emmissions as anthropogenic emissions. My apologies. My expertise is biogeochemistry and Holocene forsest ecology dynamics of the Central New Hampshire Region and as such, the climate change issue is of grave concern to me concerining abundance and distribution of species- so much so, that I have about 200 pages addressing it in one chapter of my book I have been writing for the past 20 years based on document, field and parol evidence of in excess of 500 sites I am studying.
The massive inertia of the ocean appears to be a serious problem for which naysayers do not account, enabling a huge lagtime for consequences. They will someday learn, nature bats last.
This is some non-scholarly text that I recently wrote for our local paper concerning climate change that you might enjoy:
Real Eyes Realize Real Lies
The True Story of Climate Change, Part I
Historically, the natural changes in global climate have occurred at rates that enable species to either survive by adapting, evolving, or relocating, or in the case of extreme events, species perish. With extinction comes consequences of reduced biological diversity and many other ecological problems.
The biological species that live on Earth are able to do so largely in part due to many complex biogeochemical relationships which include the precarious balance of energy coming into Earth from the Sun with that of the heat radiated back out into space.
Irrefutable scientific evidence indicates that commencing with human activities associated with the the industrial revolution, there has been an anthropogenic induced trend of more energy coming in to Earth than is being radiated back out into space. Until this energy balance is restored, the planet will continue to warm, and will do so at a non-typically increased rate.
The major reason for present climate warming is the elevated level of atmospheric CO2, which has not existed at current levels for in excess of 600,000 years. Destructive events associated with continued increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations will include continually increasing global temperatures, increased intensity and frequency of storms and wildfires, increasing drought and flood events, rise in sea level and if carrying on business as usual, a mass extinction of species.
The climate change issue is a grave inter-generational matter in which the present generation, through their current production of comparatively inexpensive fossil fuel emissions, benefit briefly, while burdening future generations with the long-term negative and perhaps irreversible destructive ecological effects resulting largely from an irresponsible, decadent behavior.
The climate change issue is clouded by misinformation. The confusion stems largely from ignorance or greed. Most non-scientists lack the time, desire or ability to acquire a collective in-depth knowledge of chemistry, biology, physics, geology, botany, mathematics, oceanography, thermodynamics and meteorology which form the basic foundation necessary for understanding climate change. In recent decades, due to ignorance or dishonesty, the issues have been in many cases, tragically corrupted into a political tool to promote many socio-ecological failures involving concepts of world government, denial of problems associated with over- population and destruction of entire terrestrial ecosystems along with a re-distribution of wealth, all the while exhibiting a blatant disregard of long-term environmental consequences involving the burning of fossil fuels. Much of the misinformation peddled by scientific impostors and those of morally questionable economic interests or dark political agendas is carelessly accepted by people, many of whom lack the understanding, are unwilling to sacrifice their perceived luxuries, find the truth too disturbing to accept or fail to acknowledge a planet of finite resources and limited resilience. Such people often become easy prey for self-appointed climate change “expert” skeptics. Additionally, it is often difficult to get a person to accept the truth when their livelihood depends on denying it. The “American Dream” is in fact, largely based on the erroneous concept of unlimited natural resources.
Furthermore, a great deal of confusion regarding the understanding of climate change results from comparing unrelated temporal or spatial scales of weather and climate or cherry-picking data to support a particular position as well as a general misunderstanding of terms or concepts. It is all about statistics/trends- not individual events. Make no mistake, the distribution of extreme events is swiftly shifting inward on the “bell-curve”. Additionally, the delayed response of the climate system in and of itself further clouds the grasping of the immediate, necessary concerns to be recognized by the present generation.
Past global and national governmental “attempts” to successfully address the climate change issue have shared similar fates of failing miserably. The Clinton and Obama administrations were complete failures regarding this issue, as were the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Accord. Nothing but talk, half-measures, corruption or irrational concepts at various levels… Ironically, the Montreal Protocol, with its successful goal of reducing Freon emissions to save atmospheric ozone, likely did more to slow the problem of global warming than all other attempts combined.Many conservatives appear to be worried about a failing economy and filling their coffers while most liberals are more interested in grabbing money for themselves, their friends and their favorite failed social agendas. This climate change issue is however not a political issue and in the absence of radical change in the near future, will devastate all, regardless of political aspirations. There is hope and there is still time to fix the problems, however the clock is ticking.
Suicidal policies of past executive and legislative branches of the United States are largely influenced by the fossil fuel industry and their influential lobbyists. Perhaps a wiser approach would be to address the matter through the U.S. Supreme Court based on language of the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution of clearly challenging if not outright denying future generations of their “Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”.
The United States has always been and will always be the greatest political experiment to exist in the history of the world due to its foundation of documents which embrace the concepts of the celebration of the human spirit, freedom, and accountability.
The United States, with many of the greatest minds in the world, has the ability to lead the world in a gradual shift toward cleaner energy which will lead to a stronger, stable economy and more importantly, a far improved environment. Anyone who thinks the economy is more important than the atmosphere should try counting their money while holding their breath.
. Wendell Berry once stated: “Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory and a sterner sense of justice than that of man.”
Anyone who thinks otherwise is gravely mistaken. Anthropogenically induced climate change is not a political issue. It is not a debate. It is a scientific fact. It is all about quality of life and leaving the place better than how we found it. We truly borrow the future from our children. Sometimes choices require sacrifice of perceived luxuries. We all have choices and those choices define us as a species.As Edmund Burke once suggested, “…evil prevails only if good men sit back and do nothing…”
Similarly, Gene Brewer stated in his book, “K-Pax”; a purported “alien” warns humans of their accountability by stating, “...the Universe will expand and collapse on itself...repeating this process forever...and every mistake you will live through again and again forever, so my advice to you is get it right this time around, because this time, is all you have.”
Perhaps the greatest legacy that this generation can pass on to the next is the acknowledgement that we “got it right with climate change.
In conclusion, the Earth will survive regardless of what humans do to it. Its survival however, might not include humans.Tick-tock, tick-tock….
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michael sweet at 07:55 AM on 17 December 2018Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2
Alonerock,
For #3: Each year humans release into the atmosphere about 24 billion tons of CO2. Those tons are the "atmospheric emissions of CO2". At the end of the 2018 there will be about 12 billion more tons of CO2 in the atmosphere than there was at the end of 2017.
That means that the amount of CO2 that remains in the atmosphere is less than the amount of CO2 that humans emitted. Since the amount of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than the amount hmans emitted, all the increase in the atmosphere comes from the human emissions.
The ocean absorbs and emits a lot of CO2 each year, much more than 24 billion tons. That does not contribute to increasing atmpspheric concentration because we know all the increase comes from human emissions. If fact, the ocean absorbs more CO2 from the atmosphere than it emits every year so it is a sink of CO2 and not a source.
The mass balance is the accounting for all the CO2 emitted each year from every source and showing where it goes by the end of the year. The amount emitted and the amount at the end of the year must balance.
For #6, if the CO2 came from volcanoes no oxygen would be used up in generating the CO2 since the CO2 from volcanoes comes out of the volcanoes as CO2. We measure that O2 in the atmosphere is decreasing. This decrease of O2 is just the same amount that would be used to generate the 24 billion tons of CO2 that humans generate each year. That shows that the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels and does not come from volcanoes. Volcanoes only emit about 200 million tons of CO2 each year (1% of human emissions) source.
Does that address your questions?
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william5331 at 04:37 AM on 17 December 20182018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Poland?? forget it. Same old same old result and now America plans to balance her trade imbalance with China by selling her a massive amount of coal.
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alonerock at 04:21 AM on 17 December 2018Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2
What does Tom mean by "atmospheric emissions of CO2" ? Is he referring to the portioin returned to the sinks? Can anyone please explain better to me his mass balance and declining O2 concentration concepts in his items #3 and #6 ? Thanks!
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MA Rodger at 02:32 AM on 17 December 2018Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2
The link to the graphic at Item 6 in the OP is broken. I assume it is TAR Fig 3.1 that should be showing.
Moderator Response:[DB] Link to IPCC TAR WG1 Fig 3.4 above updated.
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MA Rodger at 02:30 AM on 17 December 2018Climate's changed before
alonerock @626,
It would be better to put your enquiry on the thread below the OP by Tom Curtis. And note the list is followed by explanation of each item, although they do perhaps need a little effort to understand (& currently have a missing graphic for item 6).
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alonerock at 01:41 AM on 17 December 2018Climate's changed before
Can somone please explain in great detail why the mass balance (the annual CO2 concentration growth is less than the annual CO2 emissions) and the declining O2 concentration are both strong indicators of GW ? I was reading the post by Tom Currtis in 7/25/2012 and these were items number 3 and 6.
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michael sweet at 22:00 PM on 16 December 2018Climate's changed before
Ed,
You claim that you are "semi-informed". You are citing resources that are at least 10 years out of date. The current IPCC report is AR5 or the 2018 supplimental report. Perhaps the discrepancy you notice is caused by SkS being up to date while your reference is out of date.
You are clearly echoing some other web site you have read. Can you cite and link that web site directly so that we can see the entire argument? SkS probably addressed this myth in an OP 10 years ago when it was first raised. It will be easier for us to directly address the source instead of rehashing the argument again.
When you claim to be semi-informed attacking consensus scientific orthodoxy ought be done with humility, If the best you can find is a 10 year old web site that is no longer active you might want to reconsider how strong your argument is.
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MA Rodger at 20:20 PM on 16 December 2018Climate's changed before
The IPCC figures mentioned @621 are:-
The graphics linked @622 are reporduced by the denialist website climate4you from the now defunct International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project but discussion of these data would be best transferred to a more appropriate thread - SkS Could global brightening be causing global warming?
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Eclectic at 16:46 PM on 16 December 2018Climate's changed before
Ed @ 621/622 ,
you don't really advance your case (whatever it is) by waving a rhetorical hand in the direction of Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, and LeMaitre.
Copernicus and Galileo were (strictly speaking!) representing the scientific consensus of their age (an age of very few scientists, indeed). Their opponents (shall we label them denialists?) were a group of rich & powerful men (in the upper echelons of the Papal state) who supported an evidence-deficient position. Easy to see a parallel with the rich & powerful magnates of the upper echelons of the fossil fuel industry . . . plus c'est la meme chose. Even more irony, in that the modern-day Pope denounces those same science-deniers.
Einstein and LeMaitre advanced the physics/astrophysics science ~ but they did not trash the pre-existing body of science.
# Attacking the consensus scientific orthodoxy [especially in climate matters] ought to be done with humility [and genuine skepticism], lest you join the ranks of the Dunning-Krugerites.
"Uncertainty" about ECS (currently the most probable ECS figure being around 3 or 3.5 degrees) is an interesting scientific question ~ but in no way justifies delaying on decently fast transition to a nett-zero-emission economy. After all, we citizens/voters/politicians/parents ought to be intensely practical in prudent risk-managing.
My apologies, but my little laptop is struggling to access "figure 8.14 and 8.15 of AR4 WG1". Perhaps, Ed, you would be kind enough to upload those charts and explain how you think they undermine the mainstream position.
Strangely, the same goes for Dr Humlum's "climate4you" illustrations. (I have no difficulty accessing the WUWT and Climateetc websites.) On the little I know of Dr Humlum: he has (scientifically speaking) a poor track record indeed. * That is not to say he must therefore be wrong, on the cloudiness issue. But it seems the somewhat-related "Iris Hypothesis" of Prof Lindzen has fallen flat on its face. And on a second point: a "cloudiness drop" providing a warming forcing of "roughly 4 W/m^2" has much the same problem I mentioned above in post #619.D . . . that if true, then there must also be some Unknown Mysterious Cooling Factor that nicely follows/matches the rising arc of CO2's warming forcing effect. Which seems absurdly unlikely, if not quite impossible.
(And which would leave only another 5 impossible things to believe before breakfast.)
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Ed the Skeptic at 14:09 PM on 16 December 2018Antarctica is gaining ice
PS: It's important to note that according to the above sources glacial meltwater isn't the only contribution of the geothermally warm area that affects sea level. The meltwater essentially lubricates the accelerated motion of the ice flowing into the ocean.
Moderator Response:[DB] From Cazenave et al 2018, the various contributions to SLR from 1993-2015:
And from 2005-2015:
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Ed the Skeptic at 14:06 PM on 16 December 2018Antarctica is gaining ice
Thanks David. It's difficult to find any hard quantitative data. I don't see much in the references you provide.
I did did a quick search and found a few more articles, one an actual journal paper with more recent information:
https://phys.org/news/2015-07-surprisingly-high-geothermal-beneath-west.html
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2017JB014423
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David Kirtley at 11:41 AM on 16 December 2018Antarctica is gaining ice
Ed @478, take a look at the comments at this SkS post from 2014: Ice Picks: Five pieces of ice news...
You may want to look at the comments at a RealClimate post from the same time. Specifically this one (#179).
The upshot is that not much of the melting in West Antarctica is due to geothermal heat flux.
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Ed the Skeptic at 10:19 AM on 16 December 2018Antarctica is gaining ice
Anyone hear anything about how much of the melting West Antarctic land ice is due to geothermal/volcanism versus the warming climate?
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Josbert Lonnee at 08:48 AM on 16 December 2018A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming
@91
I see a link to a SWF file is now like:
https://www.brightstarstemeculavalley.org/science/zonalFlow.swf
So the difference in safe (HTTPS) and unsafe (HTTPS) protocols is no longer the problem. But the site brightstarstemeculavalley.org does not work with https. See:
https://www.brightstarstemeculavalley.org/
Thereby the flash movies still do not work, sorry.
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Ed the Skeptic at 08:43 AM on 16 December 2018Climate's changed before
The above-mentioned cloudiness data for your convenience:
Correlation with temperature change:
This is data is not being shared to divert topic, just to ask where it is included in the above-mentioned IPCC AR4 WG1 figures.
Moderator Response:[DB] Shortened links breaking page formatting
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Ed the Skeptic at 08:08 AM on 16 December 2018Climate's changed before
I've read the other myth-busting pages. Lots of good information on many of them. I hope to engage on some that appear deficient from my semi-informed perspective. I have no dog in this hunt other than truth and scientific integrity. I'm disappointed by the personal commentary that some se fit to include.
Defendping consensus scientific orthodoxy ought be done with humility, lest you join the ranks of the scoffers and naysayers who pilloried the likes of Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, and LeMaitre.
I'm not seeing lots of hard scientific evidence here on this myth-buster topic, just mostly declarations. Thus my posting.
This myth-busting deals with natural climate variability, yes? Isn't the uncertainty about ECS exactly directly related to that? It's wide range informed by some decadeal to millennial scale proxy temperature records—GISP2 stands out—would seem to indicate a significant uncertainty related to this topic, no? That's the only intended point.
Can anyone engaged hereing please explain the apparent certainty on the issue offered here on SKS relative to figure 8.14 and 8.15 of AR4 WG1?
Has anyone seen the NASA data showing significant decadal reduction in global cloudiness from around the 1980-2000 time frame, dropping from roughly 70% to 65% in two decades? That drop in cloudiness corresponds with an apparent increase in global surface solar radiation of roughly 4 W/m^2.
Where is that addressed in the AR4 WG1 tally of radiative forcing information included in the aforementioned figures 8.14 amd 8.15?
Moderator Response:[DB] Baiting snipped.
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