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David Kirtley at 11:11 AM on 21 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
I appreciate the "thanks" and praise!
"The statement "For the average citizen, who perhaps has a rudimentary grasp of general science" was a bit patronising."
Yeah, I should have worded that differently, I certainly don't mean to be patronising. Everyone has gaps in their education, by no fault of their own, myself included. But the truth is everyone (even with an exceptional education) has some limited knowledge in some field of study. There's nothing wrong with that, that's just the way things are. There's no judgement in that, merely a statement of fact.
Skeptical Science strives to make all of climate science accessible to the widest audience possible. It is important for us to keep in mind that not everyone in that audience has the same interests in science, the same background knowledge of science, or understands the science-ese that scientists use.
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Digby Scorgie at 11:02 AM on 21 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
From everything I've read I conclude that it's much better for one's health to eat small quantities of beef. My intake is 250 to 300 g per week. I'm guessing that this is quite low. So what it boils down to is that if everyone adhered to a healthy diet the demand for beef cattle would be low. Even so, I agree with RedBaron that it has to be done right.
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Digby Scorgie at 10:42 AM on 21 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
I'm also from Down Under, but I too knew immediately what was meant by "lost in the weeds". I've done my share of complicated physics (many many years ago) and I don't feel insulted.
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nigelj at 10:36 AM on 21 December 2017One Planet Summit: Finance Commitments Fire-Up Higher Momentum for Paris Climate Change Agreement
NorrisM @5, I'm not going to waste much time on this.The very first link in the article above namely "One Planet Summit" contains a page titled look at projects with 25 videos of different projects, plus a written summary of each. But apparently that is to hard for you to find, and not sufficient information?
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NorrisM at 09:25 AM on 21 December 2017One Planet Summit: Finance Commitments Fire-Up Higher Momentum for Paris Climate Change Agreement
nigelj
If there had been major commitments I would have expected this author to detail them. The onus is on the person writing the article to provide evidence for broad statements.
OPOF @ 4
My criticism is of politicians who are good at making announcements but not so good at following through. If those are the troublemakers, I am not sure what you do with them other than vote them out. I think we are past the point in our political development when they get marched up to the guillotine.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:10 AM on 21 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
The bottom line for me regarding Beef production:
I support any actions that are consistent with, and supportive of, achieving all of the Sustainable Development Goals.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:49 AM on 21 December 2017One Planet Summit: Finance Commitments Fire-Up Higher Momentum for Paris Climate Change Agreement
NorrisM,
I completely agree with your identification of the problem: "People able to get away with pursuits of Private Interests that are impediments to the pursuit of the Global Public Interest of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals."
What do you propose should be done to/about those trouble-makers?
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:15 AM on 21 December 2017Research shows that certain facts can still change conservatives’ minds
nigelj,
I have been considering the parable of the ox.
It is a reasonable presentation of the steps of departure of commodity trading from reality, into irrational gambling.
But it does not quite capture the real world problem of irresponsible gamblers in the game. Those irresponsible gamblers will not support truly sustainable improvements for all of humanity because they see a quicker bigger buck can be made by pushing over-development in a wrong direction. Their often irrational pursuits create bubbles that have to burst, like the massive bubbles of unsustainable perceptions of prosperity and opportunity that have developed due to the pursuit of benefit from burning fossil fuels.
The parable does allude to the competitive advantage obtained by being willing to behave less acceptably than others in the competition. But it does not properly highlight the powerful role of misleading marketing in drumming up unsustainable regional or tribal popular support for profitable activity that is understandably damaging and ultimately unsustainable.
And the story completely misses the power of misleading marketing in politics that can result in elected representatives deliberately participating in the misleading marketing scams even when those scams are fooling less than half of the population. A politician can win by playing the game of carefully target marketing appeals about many single issues that individually are understandably unacceptable and have less than majority support. Collecting enough unacceptable single issue voters and having them understand the power they can have if they vote for each other's unacceptable Private Interests is understandably the Power Game played by the Uniters of the Right.
A better ending of the Ox parable would be to have the gamblers betting on getting a share of the Winnings of the most successful farmer, with the most successful farmers being the ones who have low costs because they produce something that looks like an Ox but is very low in nutrients for the consumer, and maybe even be harmful to the consumer.
That would be like those profitable Bady Food Powder producers who added melamine to the powder because it was cheap and would be counted as protein by the testing that was done. And the nation that that happened in is less important than understanding that the nation had low monitoring of what was done so it was not able to stop the problem before it became a real serious problem.
That 'let trouble develop then see it anything gets done about it' type of system is what the likes of the Republicans push for in the USA. They 'Promote the Belief' that the threat of legal consequences will keep people from behaving less acceptably. It is undeniable how that turns out (As a Canadian Professional Engineer, I saw how some States let anyone claim to be an Engineer with legal consequences for not properly doing something being the only threat they faced - and I saw how popular with executives it was to hire that cheaper person who claimed to be an Engineer). A real serious problem always has to occur/develop before any serious attempt is made to deal with it. The result is often a Lack of Any Corrective Action. And even when corrective action occurs it is Always Too Late, And Always Too Little Done to Correct the Problem, or the general population pays to fix it.
The climate change challenge is a big one because the non-USA people and all of the future generations suffer the consequences but have no real legal recourse against the 'greedy Private Interests focused people' who gamble on getting away with behaving unacceptably.
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Philippe Chantreau at 06:24 AM on 21 December 2017CO2 limits won't cool the planet
And that last piece about Swinbank vs MODTRAN. Note that the Swinbank model dates back to 1963.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0038092X9500117A
Excerpt: "Besides, the formulae of Swinbank (1963) and of Czeplak and Kasten (1987), which both express the emittance as a quadratic function of dry bulb temperature, turned out to reflect the radiation physics of “normally” stratified not too dry atmospheres."
Interestingly, it turns out that MODTRAN in fact validated the Swinbank model under the somewhat narrow circumstances described above. Swinbank came up with a good way to estimate things that were later derived much more precisely from radiative physics. That's how science works. I don't see how anyone would prefer to use Swinbank over MODTRAN or HITRAN at this point in time, except for the simplicity of use, but computers mostly solve that problem.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:43 AM on 21 December 2017CO2 limits won't cool the planet
Mods; I'm having problems losing comments when using the link insert function, hence the non embedded links at the end.
Aaron: Your Mars/Earth trick ignores the facts that Mars does have some GH effect that raises its average temp by approximately 5 deg K compared to no GH effect at all. Mars remains cold because of the very low atmospheric mass, the lack of other GH gases in sufficient quantity, the low solar irradiance and low outgoing IR radiation to be captured. You did not mention any of these facts, and your little mars/Earth comparison is irrelevant to the point of being misleading. The shame is on you for that.
MODTRAN and HITRAN are sophisticated models using physics. I'm not sure what you are trying to say with the predictive/descriptive thing. The values predicted by HI/MODTRAN have been verified for many conditions and show close agreement with observations. This was especially important from early on when developing the model and was the subject of abundant research. There is an entire body of litterature on this aspect of validation. These models superseded simple models such as the Swinbank many years ago, and allow for far more accurate and refined representations of atmospheric radiative processes. The tutorial that you linked only claims to be useful for cloudless vs cloudy night comparisons. It states to be valid for a surface "isolated from its environment."
The reason why CO2 receives emphasis in IPCC works is because all the research compiled continues to point to it as the forcing responsible for the changes observed. No other forcing fits the bill, no matter how hard we look. Furthermore, paleo evidence also points to CO2 as the major control knob. That is why it is necessary to accomplish a carbon free energy transition, then decarbonize as much of the World economy as possible. I do not advocate for geo-engineering, but if it comes to that, large scale carbon capture is likely the least risky option. Not only it will just reverse the recent trend, but it will also mimic what has happened naturally in the past.
In contrast, the geo-engineering schemes that you propose are among the least realistic I've ever seen. Paleo evidence suggests that the closing of the Panama isthmus was associated with the onset of the glaciation/deglaciation cycles. Forcing large amounts of sea water to do anything could lead to the mother of all unintended consequences and would require to transform the entire planet in some sort of gigantic engineering project.
As of now, airplanes emit CO2, H2O and various particulates. Although the altitude of release poses its own problems, the quantities involved make them far less of a priority than coal fueled electricity production. Recruiting commercial air traffic for the purpose you suggest would imply that they're equipped with carbon/water free propulsion, and then loaded with equipment decreasing their payload, while they already have the problem of energy density to contend with. That is nowhere near realistic.
Your remark on moving thermal and nuclear plants seem to allude to waste heat. This has been discussed on this site and shown to be an order of magnitude too small to be a significant factor. In addition, large industrial facilities of any kind can not be "moved." They would have to be dismantled (expensive process) then rebuilt somehwere else (even more expensive). In the case of electricity producing facilities, relocating far away from consumption sites also carries innumerable other problems.
I don't see that you've shown to understand atmospheric radiative processes anywhere near as well as you claim, and certainly not in a way to turn current understanding by experts on its head; it would be a euphemism to call your geo-engineering ideas far fecthed.
About Mars:
http://marsnews.com/the-planet-mars
One (among many) relatively recent MODTRAN validation study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22614400
About moving sea water:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X05004048
Moderator Response:[JH] Links activated.
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michael sweet at 05:16 AM on 21 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
Perhaps Lost in the Weeds is an American colloquialism. I do not use it but I knew what it means right away. I found a reference to American slang. Does anyone from England know this phrase? I think Nigelj and Chriskoz are from down under.
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nigelj at 05:01 AM on 21 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
I agree with OPOF, the question of beef is not just about one thing.It requires weighing up several things as follows:
In defence of meat: I know Red Baron is coming from the angle of maintaining large prairie types of cattle grazed grasslands, because its natural, and leads to deep carbon rich soils. This is good for the climate, and because a lot of this land can only really be used for cattle anyway, unless you throw enormous irrigation and fertiliser resources at it, in a desperate and dubious attempt to grow crops.
Meat is also a rich source of iron and protein, and lets face it people nothing tastes as great as a grilled steak.
The case against meat: On the other hand, meat is essentially an inefficient use of resources, and too much meat can cause certain cancers. We also dont want an absurd situation where huge quantities of land are used for cattle and their feedcrops, which starts to crowd out other crops and make basic cereals expensive. It's also not really feasible to try to revert to the early hunter gatherer period of 20,000 years ago of vast tracts of grasslands and wild cattle roaming, and no human crops. (Although red baron possibly dreams of this in his sleep)
Clearing vast tracts of rainforest for cattle grazing has a lot of detrimental effects to me.
The verdict: So what am I saying? I sure dont think we all have to become vegeterian, but keeping meat consumption low to moderate makes sense.
There's probably a sensible balance, or optimal balance between crop lands and cattle grazing. If we have good environmental policies, education and laws in general terms, particularly in respect of agriculture we will find that balance without having to try to pick a number and impose it.
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nigelj at 04:36 AM on 21 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
I have to agree with Chriskoz. I found the lost in the weeds termnology rather off putting terminology.
The statement "For the average citizen, who perhaps has a rudimentary grasp of general science" was a bit patronising. Only has a general grasp of science is better. But its a nit pick.
Overall this article has stunning precision and clarity. It's the best written article on a complex subject I have read in years, and I read a lot. Frankly it sets the standard.
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michael sweet at 03:57 AM on 21 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Dr. Jeff Masters reviews a book on sea level rise called The Water Will Come. It is written by a Jouralist but Dr Masters rates it highly. Just the review is interesting. Miami gets three chapters (out of twelve).
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Alpinist at 03:26 AM on 21 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
Thanks David. I've used this information in my cllimate presentations as part of the answer to the question "how do we know it's us?"
My answer is Math, Chemistry and Physics.... This is the Chemistry part.
Thanks again and Happy Holidays to all.
Tokodave
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:44 AM on 21 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Red Baron,
The problem with Beef is more than the global warming impact assessment, just like the problem with burning fossil fuels is more than just the global warming aspects.
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David Kirtley at 23:19 PM on 20 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
michael sweet explains it well. Think of a field of beans or some other crop: the view of the entire field is similar to the broad explanation of climate science. But when you get in closer among the furrows of the field and zero in among the weeds you are getting into the finer details of some aspect of the science.
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michael sweet at 20:38 PM on 20 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
Chriskoz,
Googling "lost in the weeds yields:
"Dear Word Detective: The phrase “getting into the weeds” is widely used to mean “getting into the details,” often with the inference of getting into too much detail. I have a guess about the origin of this phrase which is that it comes from harvesting."
It is clear that is the meaning here. David Kirtley wants to get into a lot of detail about carbon.
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michael sweet at 20:25 PM on 20 December 2017Polar bear numbers are increasing
Bruce,
According to this Desmog blog, Susan Crockford refused to respond to emails that asked aboout the money she gets from the Heartland Institute. Desmog provides links to internal Heartland documents that say they pay Crockford. Most of her claims are that she is a biological expert without mention of polar bears ie: " a paper in a peer-reviewed book chapter on ringed seals, the primary prey of polar bears (Crockford and Frederick 2011), and a peer-reviewed journal article on the paleohistory of Bering Sea ice,".
Susan Crockford has never studied polar bears, her "detailed academic critique" (mentioned first by you so it must be important to you) is a blog post written for the Heartlad Institute.
She is an adjunct professor which means she is part time in a position at the bottom rung of education. Hardly the position of an expert. I am an adjunct professor at a college so I know what that is.
Under no standard is she an expert in all biology as she claims.
I await your apology since I have provided documentation that Susan Crockford receives money from the Heartland Institute. Her denials are apparently false.
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chriskoz at 20:05 PM on 20 December 2017From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 1: The Basics
I categorically object to the use of term "weeds" to describe complex knowledge that must be simplified in order to explain the basics. As much as I like the explanation of CS to on this site in general, the use of the term "weeds" in this article is so logically incorect and even misleading that it warrants my objection.
I'm a bush regenerator in my spare time here in Australia, so I'm entitled to speak on this subject. The term "weed" means a plant that grows somewhere out of its natural place, and often disturbes the balance of the ecosystem by suppressing other native species, so we don't want it to grow there. Following that definition, by calling the detailed, complex knowledge of CS by the relevant experts "weeds", do you imply that their knowledge is misplaced, that said knowledge interferes with other information and that we want to remove it? Nonsense, misleading characterisation at worse, or a serious mistake at least.
I'm surprised that you made such a mistake. Perhaps you meant the climate myths by science deniers or contrarians, should be called "weeds". Those myths, that needs to be eradicated and the reculting gaps replaced by positive knowledge, so the "weeds" analogy would be precise here. But you're not talking about science deniao here.
I think you should re3tract that "weeds" term from this article and replace it with something more apporpriate (e.g. "deep ocean where you drown") otherwise you will atract harsh criticism and disapointment from people like myslef who know what "weeds"really are.
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Eclectic at 19:21 PM on 20 December 2017Polar bear numbers are increasing
Bruce @72 ..... with all due respect, Dr Crockford's expertise in evolution/speciation & hybridization of polar bears has near zero relevance to the modern situation where there is an extinction threat to the species.
Polar bears are evolved for a specialized diet, and they do not have the fall-back position of an omnivorous diet (such as possessed by their ursine relatives). The polar bears' hunting habitat is heading rapidly toward 100% loss over the next one-to-two centuries, thanks to Arctic warming (per AGW).
Polar bear numbers (and importantly their condition) can be very difficult to determine accurately. It is a bold, very bold, scientist who undertakes to publicly express a complacent attitude about the survival of a specialized mega-fauna carnivore which is undergoing almost complete loss of habitat. Especially bold, for a scientist who is not a specialist "at the coal face".
It appears Dr Crockford holds an outlier opinion, and is also making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to relevant expertise.
As to whether she is receiving financial benefits (from propaganda organizations such as Heartland, GWPF or other slush funds) in the form of a retainer or fee-for-service or stipend [see for instance the case of Emeritus Professor Lindzen or maybe Dr Judith Curry] or receiving non-cash benefits for speaking engagements etcetera ..... a cynic like you Bruce would of course wish see an absolutely categorical denial from her, that "none of the above" benefits apply to the present financial year nor any years of the past decade. Alas, it is all too easy for propaganda organizations to arrange for covert benefits of various types.
All too often in this world, Bruce, situations are more "gray" than you would wish.
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bruce14421 at 17:32 PM on 20 December 2017Polar bear numbers are increasing
Michael Sweet says about Dr Crockford "No sign of expertise in polar bears"
From Dr Crockfors's letter to the AIBS.
"I am a professional zoologist with a Ph.D. and over forty years of experience and dozens of peer-reviewed papers on various topics, and also fails to mention that I have recently published a detailed academic critique on the issue of polar bear conservation status."
"...my Ph.D. dissertation on speciation included polar bears"
"In addition to my dissertation that features polar bears, I have an article on evolution in a peer-reviewed journal in which polar bears are prominently featured (Crockford 2003), and two official comments, with references, on polar bear hybridization (which is how official responses to published papers are handled in these two journals). I also have a paper in a peer-reviewed book chapter on ringed seals, the primary prey of polar bears (Crockford and Frederick 2011), and a peer-reviewed journal article on the paleohistory of Bering Sea ice, the habitat of Chukchi Sea polar bears (Crockford and Frederick 2007)."
According to http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/population/
polar bear numbers are 22-31,000.
From the literature I've read no-one seriously disputes they are currently in decline but computer models say they are threatened by future climate change.
Michael Sweet said
"She is paid a monthly retainer from the Heartland Institute."
But she says...
I am not “linked with” nor do I “receive support” from The Heartland Institute or any other corporate-funded think tank.
either Michael Sweet or Dr Crockford is lying.
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RedBaron at 16:53 PM on 20 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
One Planet Only Forever
There is no "yeah buts". Regenerative ag works at any scale in any country in developed and developing technologies and at every volumn. You have this fixation with trying to make beef production a villian. It isn't. There is no down side. Raise it correctly and instead of 10x the harm, it becomes 10x the benefit. The cow is the great multiplier, both the biggest villian done wrong and the best hero done right. It is because of the rumen. It is designed to recycle hard to digest plant material in large volumns. If the land needs large quantities of plant material and nutrients recycled, then the cow becomes the hero every bit as much as it becomes the villian when instead of hard to digest plant material is used and instead high quality expensive crops are purposely wasted. Either way it isn't all about the cow anyway. There are multitudes of crops and food animals!
Recycling beneficial plant debris? good x 10
Wasting perfectly good grains grown as crops? bad x 10
“The number one public enemy is the cow. But the number one tool that can save mankind is the cow. We need every cow we can get back out on the range. It is almost criminal to have them in feedlots which are inhumane, antisocial, and environmentally and economically unsound.” Allan Savory
I have gone over this so many times on so many threads they asked me to just post the evidence all in one place and simply refer back to it. Otherwise the threads bogged down.
Can we reverse global warming?
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nigelj at 16:19 PM on 20 December 2017One Planet Summit: Finance Commitments Fire-Up Higher Momentum for Paris Climate Change Agreement
Norris M @2
"I do not see very much other than fanfare or repetition of promises made in the past."
Talk is cheap. You provide no proof (with internet links) that these announcements are merely repetition. It seems unlikely to me they would just repeat exact past dollar commitments.
"But in reading through this post, I am at a loss to understand what billions of dollars have been announced today. "
The article is a summary. Why not read the links and original reports etc.
"I see Bill Gates promising $15MM over five years but that works out to $3mm per year. That is "chump change" to Bill Gates"
He gives billions to other causes. Now you have finished rubbishing Gates, how much do you contribute, - as a well paid lawyer?
"What I am questioning is the willingness of developed countries to transfer a significant portion its wealth to another country in the name of climate change."
What you are doing is spreading cynical negativity and doubt.
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NorrisM at 15:14 PM on 20 December 2017One Planet Summit: Finance Commitments Fire-Up Higher Momentum for Paris Climate Change Agreement
Perhaps someone can explain what actually happened at the One Planet Summit.
I just went through all of this whole post entitled "Finance Commitments Fire Up Higher Momentum" and I do not see very much other than fanfare or repetition of promises made in the past.
As part of the fanfare, Patricia Espinosa is quoted as follows:
“From the United Nations system to governments and investors, billions of dollars have today been mobilized and trillions more pointed towards a transformation of the world’s energy to agricultural sectors, adding to the finance that has already been flowing before, during and since Paris 2015”.
But in reading through this post, I am at a loss to understand what billions of dollars have been announced today. I see Bill Gates promising $15MM over five years but that works out to $3mm per year. That is "chump change" to Bill Gates probably representing about a half of one day's interest return on his net worth.
Perhaps someone can elucidate. What concerns me is that countries are great at making big announcements but not so great at cutting the cheques.
What I am questioning is the willingness of developed countries to transfer a significant portion its wealth to another country in the name of climate change. Unless I am missing something, the last time we saw this was the Marshall Plan. That is a long time ago and was a very bold move by Truman to counter communism.
Please note that I am not referencing specific actions on climate change taken within a specific country.
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nigelj at 06:20 AM on 20 December 2017One Planet Summit: Finance Commitments Fire-Up Higher Momentum for Paris Climate Change Agreement
Thankyou for some positive news that may encourage others to follow suit.
We must face the obvious problem: We are polluting the planet, and using resources frighteningly fast, due to a combination of fossil fuel use, high population growth and high gdp growth.
The solution has to be a combination of renewable energy, better controls on polluting activities, aim to slowly achieve smaller global population, and phase down to steady state economy with zero gdp growth.There is no alternative.Even recycling while useful, comes up against limits eventually.
The UN sustainable development goals make perfect sense.
We can help vulnerable people adjust, and ensure assistance is targeted at programmes that really work and that spend money wisely. We must not let powerful people with vested interests and mean spirited ideologues stand in the way of all these various things.
All these solutions have a huge range of hidden benefits to our lifestyles,and security, and will make long term sustainablity possible.
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nigelj at 05:23 AM on 20 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
We are polluting the planet, and using up mineral resources incredibly fast. Many materials can be recycled many times, - but not all. We come up against hard resource limits eventually.
The causes are near exponential population growth, and gdp growth
The solution is phase down to zero gdp growth economy, and stop population growth. We may even need a smaller population than todays numbers, if you want decent consumption levels sustainable long term.
It's slow reducing population growth rates, so the other factors are very important like slower gdp growth, renewable energy etc.
UN development goals are definitely the right way.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:15 AM on 20 December 2017California's hellish fires: a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future
Michael, note that the paragraph starts with "where I live." That is close to 45 degrees lattitude, with a significant oceanic influence that brings a lot of precipitation between October and June. I know that things are different in the Eastern part of the state and in California. You are corect that all the region's fire season is extending in duration though.
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michael sweet at 05:08 AM on 20 December 2017Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
Damcc
You asked " what do you think Morner's motivation could be for rejecting consensus on this issue?" but the answer you suggest is exactly backwards.
If Morner was to agree with the consensus he would be one of a million scientists and no-one would care about his opinion. Since he is a "skeptic", he gets to write Wall Street Joural articles, is feted at Heartland Institute bashes, is paid to give speeches on AGW, is presented as an expert and does not have to learn any of the science.
Skeptic scietists like Spencer, Curry, Lidzen and Watts (they are scraping the bottom of the barrel when one of their "experts" never even graduated from college) would be completely ignored if they were mainstream because their contributions are so small compared to Hanson, Mann and many others.
Morner owes his fame to being skeptical.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:45 AM on 20 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
knaugle,
Achieving all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is indeed essential for humanity to have a future.
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knaugle at 01:54 AM on 20 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
This is at best a temporary solution. Even at 7.5 billion people, it seems we have way more demand for resources than the Earth can sustainably provide. Sure we can act more sustainably, but what happens when we reach 10 billion? 15 billion? There is a breaking point no matter what we do if we refuse to address population growth. It's not easy, China tried, and failed. AGW will just make it worse.
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MA Rodger at 01:24 AM on 20 December 2017Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
danmcc @90,
You speak in the present tense and while this thread has been collecting cobwebs for some years, you are correct in using the present tense. Nils-Axel Mörner is still at it, for instance last year responding to the assertions that SLR in the last century was 'extremely likely faster thanany of the previous 27 centuries' set out by Kopp et al (2016) last year with a pantomine 'Oh no it's not.' And more recently he is published in an obscure non-SLR journal. If you want to see the man himself in action, there is 19 minutes of him from last summer in full flow here.
Mind, of late there has been proposed adjustments to that satellite record pre-2003 but I don't think Mörner will be happy with the adjustments being suggested by, for instance Chen et al (2017).
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Eclectic at 00:42 AM on 20 December 2017Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
Danmcc @90 , one can only guess at the various motivations that compel Dr Moerner's rejection of all the evidence.
If he were the one and only person to reject the physical evidence of our modern global warming, then perhaps one could look at his age [currently 79] and speculate about him "Going Emeritus" or suffering some organic deterioration that could explain such strange behavior. Or look at prior personality type favoring maverick attitude [in blunter terms: "ornery contrariness"] or perhaps even a type of persecution complex.
However, we do not have access to his inner psyche — and so, in view of the considerable number of humans who believe the Earth is flat or believe that all scientists are in a grand century-long Conspiracy against mankind . . . or even that the Moon Landings were faked or that Climate Change is a Hoax by the Chinese . . . then IMO we should recognise that not all humans are fully sane (sane in the sense of being intellectually sane). It would appear that Moerner is just one more example — nothing more, nothing less. Danmcc, really it is not worth your while agonising over such motivations. There is plenty of other craziness in this world, worthy of your more urgent attention.
Your second point — the "falsely-adjusted" altimetry data — is more easily dealt with. Look at the bigger picture : sea temperature measurements show the ocean is warming [as expected, from the increase of the so-called Greenhouse Effect which has been going on for a century or more] and that a vast amount of land-based ice (well over 30 million Megatons, over that time) has melted and flowed into the ocean. So of course the sea level has risen substantially — and with much more to come. Moerner is being grossly unscientific. Crazily so. (Danmcc, you may also be amused to read Tom Curtis's post #51 above, and subsequent discussion.)
Thirdly, Danmcc, as you point out — a single satellite, making a single 90-minute orbit around the planet, will have great inaccuracy in altimeter reading. But multiply those orbital passes by tens of thousands of iterations, and the integration will have only a very tiny error. And remember that the satellite data is also well-supported by the tide-gauge data.
Basically, Moerner is laughably wrong (or is "sadly wrong" the better term?).
Please note that the initial diagram in the OP article above, is now more than 5 years out of date. Sea level is rising ever faster (and an up-to-date analysis is to be found on statistician "Tamino" website).
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danmcc at 22:30 PM on 19 December 2017Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
I have three questions. First, what do you think Morner's motivation could be for rejecting consensus on this issue? He clearly knows he'll be smeared and isolated because of it as opposed to being held in the high esteem he once was. That makes me tend to think he is worth listening to.
Secondly, he claims that the satellite record has been "falsely adjusted" to "get a trend" because older data showed little or no rise. I can't find any data that shows what the new "calibrations" were, or why they were made. Does anyone know?
Finally, I did some research on how the altimetry of the Sats works at http://www.altimetry.info/radar-altimetry-tutorial/how-altimetry-works/. In that
quite detailed information, there are a large number of error sources listed that have to be corrected. They are listed as variable signal propagation delays due to ionization and water vapor, tidal effects, eddies, gravity anomalies, rotational effects, antenna angle of incidence, signal noise, and surface wind. I reason that each error correction is likely subject to some quantifiable total error range which is not documented. Also, to my surprise, I found words to this effect. "Resolution of the altimeter is 47CM (3.125ns) and range measurement over the ocean is 10 times greater than this" That is 4.7 meters! I also found this "satellite altitude accuracy is about 1 or 2 CM". So my question then is how is it possible to resolve the measurement to millimeters when the resolution is many 1000s of times lower than that, altitude accuracy is an approximation 10 to 20 times that, and there are other unquantified error sources? -
Craigh00000 at 22:25 PM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49
For me it comes down two simple things. (1) CO2 is bad for you. (If you dispute this, go breathe from your car's exhaust pipe.) (2) You never add your trash to the pile that is already there, thereby making it bigger. Just cut down on your trash.
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Aaron Davis at 16:14 PM on 19 December 2017CO2 limits won't cool the planet
Philippe Chantreau "Water vapor is readily precipitable and can not force changes in energy budget on its own; the water vapor content is a direct function of temperature, not the other way around."
I've heard this argument before but can't understand it's relavance. The Modified Swinbank model adequately predicts the drop in overnight temperature of water on a circular aluminum disk without the need for ozone or CO2 contributions. I believe Hitran and Motran are descriptive models, not predictive. They maybe are helpful in Navier Stokes storm track predictions, but are not appropriate in predicting nighttime radiant cooling. The reference for Nighttime Radiant Cooling comes from an astronomy tutorial: http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf which has been demonstrated (not just modeled, or inspected but actually verified in archetectural applications. True, the application here to climate-engineering is my humble contribution. But, I think you should be embarressed to tag it as "laughable". Shame on you.
"In contrast, CO2 stays for a very long time, that is why it is known as the biggest control knob". I've also heard this argument before. Even at 40x the concentration CO2's persistence in the Martian atmosphere does not appear to be a very big knob. Why would you think it would be a big knob on Earth? I think you might be misquoting someone else.
Now on Venus which has 4000x the CO2 concentration as earth. But, it's its thick hydrogen sulfide reflective layer that probably runs the temperature up to 460 oF. Kind of suggest we don't use sulfur to do Solar Radiation Management, eh?
CO2 emmissions is at best a proxy for quantifying heat loading from fossil fuel use, which I agree is what causes increase in water vapor which is what clogs up the earths natural nighttime radiant cooling mechanism. CO2 itself is not a significant factor.
I also noticed my comment was missing. It would really be sad if failure to rebut means you get blocked.
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NorrisM at 15:31 PM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49
Another one bites the dust! I have just seen on MSNBC that Judge Kozinski, one of the three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal who just heard the Juliana v US mandamus application by the US Government (see par 15 above) has just resigned from the bench "amid sexual misconduct allegations".
It was bizarre, I was sitting in my hotel room (out of town on business) scrolling through the TV channels before retiring and I suddenly find myself looking at the face of one of the judges I just watched on the televised hearing that I have referenced above.
How this impacts the upcoming decision is anyone's guess. Having said that, my best guess is that the decision will just be rendered by the remaining two, Thomas CJ and Berzon J. Berzon J was clearly in favour of allowing the case to proceed. I had predicted this in any event thinking that the decision would probably be a 2 to 1 decision with Kozinski dissenting (if not all three allowing it to proceed).
I know most of you are going to chuckle about this but I had noted above that Kozinski J. was the one siding with the US Government in the exhanges between the bench and counsel!
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Aaron Davis at 15:31 PM on 19 December 2017CO2 limits won't cool the planet
While this post does not fit into the Taxonomy of Arguments I hope it will help.
- Global Warming IS happening
- Human energy consumption from fossil and nuclear fuels combined with positive feedbacks from H2O are the cause.
- Global Warming is very serious
- It's NOT too hard too fix. BUT — CO2 MODERATION WILL NOT BE EFFECTIVE.
- IPCC overstating the effect of CO2 hurts the argument.
Facts:
- The Mars atmosphere is 0.6% as dense as earth's. Surface density: ~0.020 kg/m3 https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
- The main component of the atmosphere of Mars is carbon dioxide (CO2) at 95.9% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars#Carbon_dioxide
- The density of carbon dioxide on Mars is ~0.019 kg/m3
- The Earth atmosphere is ~1.2 kg/m3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
- Carbon dioxide in the earths atmosphere is 400 ppm (0.4 ppt, 0.04%)
- The density of carbon dioxide on Earth is ~0.00048 kg/m3
- Mars has 40 times more CO2 molecules per floating around a unit volume than does earth
- A summer day on Mars may get up to 70 degrees F, but at night the temperature can plummet to about minus 100 degrees F. https://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html
- At sea level on the equator (Manta, Ecuador) the temperature ranges from 70 to 80 degrees F.
Conclusion:
- If CO2 were a significant factor compared to other factors such as water vapor, and ocean temperature regulation daily solar radiation on Mars would be much less.
- Moderating CO2 concentrations on earth will not be an effective method of achieving near term global thermal control
What will be effective? Enhanced Nighttime Radiant Cooling.
- Stop using fossil and nuclear fuels which heats the planet beyond the ability of nighttime radiant cooling to reject that heat.
- Move high energy industry like smelting, petroleum refining and concrete manufacturing to high desert nighttime environments.
- Use 100,000 per day commercial flights to remove clouds and humidity from nighttime skies - weather modification.
- Expose more liquid sea water to polar night conditions to achieve a 40 oC temperature gradient http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf
- "Carbon dioxide and ozone have a lesser greenhouse effect." than cloud height, cloud cover, and relative humidity
This figure shows Radiant Flux vs temperature for various relative humidity. A 50 W m-2 improvement can be achieved by increasing the temperature difference during polar winter and decreasing RH at lower latitudes by weather modification.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/O7G1EJo.png[/img]
https://imgur.com/O7G1EJo
View post on imgur.com
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michael sweet at 13:34 PM on 19 December 2017California's hellish fires: a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future
Philippe,
I like your post and agree with you. The one thing I noticed was you said "lead to massive wildfires between July and September".
As I am sure you know, the fire season used to be July to September but now global warming has expaned it to May-December. The fire currently burning in Santa Barbara (about to be the largest in California in modern history) would not have occured without the drought partially caused by global warming. Kay does not seem to realize that the weather causes the conditions for big fires to exist.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:30 PM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Red Baron,
Large scale, industrial, Beef production is a problem. And the volume of beef nigelj is referring to is unlikely to be able to be responsibly produced through regenerative farming. And I was pointing out how damaging to many other ways of living the large scale beef production in South America is - even without the USA nonsense of corn grown as feed for cattle as well as for ethanol.
And regenrative practices that sequester CO2 are a brilliant change of food production methods ... made even better by limiting the amount of beef production in the program.
And more hands-on human-physical management, rather than automated powered machine operations, would potentially provide more produce per hectare with even less mechanical energy consumption.
The entire human population can easily be well-fed, as long as the wealthiest responsibly lead by limiting their consumption to a low-impact lifestyle and using their influence to ensure that adequate amounts of good food gets to everyone.
And that is where the problem lies, the trouble-makers fib (misleading marketing) to excuse their lack of interest in responsibly limiting their behaviour. And just like bullies they gather their crowds of wanna-be-Bully-Winners to vote for/support their understandably unacceptable desires/behaviour.
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RedBaron at 11:58 AM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
@14 One Planet Only Forever,
It would be a mistake to think regenerative agriculture isn't a scientific advance for ALL countries.
Yes I used the US as an example of the worst of the worst with our purposely designed wasteful Ag systems. We are the best at wasteful systems because we are about the best at almost everything we really try hard at doing. Since we have been pumping many billions of dollars yearly into a system purposely designed to be wasteful from the start, we have gotten really really good at it. No one can even come close to the destructive power. We have turned agriculture into Scorched Earth policy. We have essentially weaponised agriculture. We do that sort of thing better than any country in the world.
A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz
However, the regenerative agricultural science advances are usable everywhere and improve economies, soil sequestration, feed the hungry, yields etc etc etc everywhere. Here is a great example of the exact opposite spectrum: In this case it provides just as big or bigger a benefit to traditional subsistance farmers as it does to developed industrial farmers.
Rangelands Rehabilitation and Carbon Credits in Kenya
And don't think it stops there either. Every technology level between is equally improved. This is because it is a biological systems science advancement. It is capable of being applied across the board. Not just animals either.
The System of Rice Intensification (SRI)…
… is climate-smart rice productionAre you noticing a theme yet? More food is produced, not less. The farmers benefit tremendously as much or more than anyone else. Costs to produce are actually cheaper not more expensive. Land fertility gets restored. And above all is an AGW mitigation technique.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:51 AM on 19 December 2017California's hellish fires: a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future
One could almost think that Kay is being deliberately obtuse. Every day when I get home I flip a switch to get some light (something I'm always grateful for). If one day there has been a gas leak and my flipping of the switch causes an explosion, Kay will argue that the switch was the cause of the explosion. Although she may feel that she is technically right in a narrow sense, she still would not be, since both the switch and the gas are needed for the explosion to happen. This is why I have flipped the switch countless times before without triggering an explosion.
Where I live, there are approximately as many downed power lines, careless smokers, distracted campers as anywhere else, actually there are likely more because of the abundance of public lands and national parks. However, fire triggering micro events normally do not lead to massive wildfires between July and September, why is that? Could it be because the conditions are not right?
What a concept. The articles that Kay seemingly has so much beef against describe fire prone conditions becoming more severe, more widespread and lasting throughout the year. Triggers that would normally have caused no fire or self limiting fires can then lead to widespread, fast-moving, catastrophic fires, at times when they normaly would not. That is what these articles talk about.
If you want to make a valid argument Kay, try saying that people need to be educated about changing risk brought about by changing conditions. Nonetheless, the changing conditions remain the biggest problem.
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nigelj at 05:15 AM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Recommended supplemental reading on whats wrong with economics, and how to fix it, by Joseph Stiglitz. He also understands the environment and how ot fits into things.
The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe (2016)
The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them (2015)
Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress (2014)
The Price of Inequality (2012)
Freefall (2010)
The Three Trillion Dollar War (2008)
Stability with Growth (2006)
Making Globalization Work (2006)
Fair Trade for All (2005)
New Paradigm for Monetary Economics (2003)The Roaring Nineties (2003)
Globalization and Its Discontents (2002) -
nigelj at 04:59 AM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
"Heat pumps are very efficient - a little power provides a lot of heat."
They are indeed, and the tiny little device sufficient for a typical house costs about $2000, so just imagine the cost of trying to cool millions of square kilometres of the arctic. (14.5 million square kilometres to be precise).
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nigelj at 04:51 AM on 19 December 2017Scientists have beaten down the best climate denial argument
I was curious about the iris effect not knowing anything about it, and discovered this. The iris effect is apparently real, but the issue is while warming produces less high level cirrus cloud, thus letting more heat energy escape, the same effect allows more solar radiation in, cancelling out the effect. Refer realclimate.org article here.
Warming leads to less low level cloud, which creates a positive local feedback discussed on skepticalscience.com here.
Looks very challenging to me to model all this stuff. However when CO2 concentrations in the past were similar to today, temperatures and sea level were all significantly higher. That does not look like low climate sensitivity or negative cloud feedbacks, and is a bit of a warning.
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Philippe Chantreau at 04:44 AM on 19 December 2017CO2 limits won't cool the planet
Somehow my previous comment was lost. Aaron Davis is suggesting that our current understanding would be that CO2 is responsible for all, or even most, of Earth' atmosphere IR backradiation. That is a whopper of a straw man, truly in the laughable category. The fact that water vapor is responsible for the majority of it has been well known from early on in the study of atmospheric physics. See all the Iacono and Clough works. Water vapor is readily precipitable and can not force changes in energy budget on its own; the water vapor content is a direct function of temperature, not the other way around. In contrast, CO2 stays for a very long time, that is why it is known as the biggest control knob. If Aaron thinks he's got a better handle on atmospheric radiative physics than the makers of MODTRAN and HITRAN (now showing 320 molecular species), he should go hack it in the litterature.
Perhaps the reluctance of the current administration to engage in the red team/blue team BS was spurred by the perspective of having some clueless think tank ideologue throwing around calculations like the ones above and thinking they've got everybody foiled while the poor scientists caught in their "team" will shake their heads in despair...
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kay at 04:37 AM on 19 December 2017California's hellish fires: a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future
I realize this is not a good place to read information and discern rather their is legitimate cause for concern or not...
Obviously moderator's as well don't read their own article and want me to copy the statements they made...for example: in 2 of the mention studies above found on this page https://www.skepticalscience.com/california-hellish-fires-christmas-future.html#commenthead
Says: As a 2015 study published in Environmental Research Letters found, Santa Ana fires are especially costly because of the speed at which they spread due to the winds and their proximity to urban areas. That study concluded that the area burned by Southern California wildfires will increase by about 70% by mid-century due to the drier, hotter, windier conditions caused by global warming.
And:
A 2010 study published in Forest Ecology and Management found that global warming may extend the fire season year-round in California and the southwestern USA. These December fires will become more commonplace in a hotter world. We’re literally getting a glimpse at Christmas future, and though there are other factors at play, human-caused global warming is largely to blame
Notice the human-caused global warming is blamed and not the human-caused fires started that causes these fires...
I would think I would not need to copy your own page to give the reference of whom is claiming what...
If you want me to give information of the human caused fires then you claim to know whom caused them but I must spend my time posting the pages that prove majority of man caused the actual fire to start..thus culprit is man. Which my comment was not to argue but to give advise that if you want to reach more people willing to listen to your cause, then make sure you divulge all facts in article... facts left out of article (which you failed to mention) are:
Overwhelming Cause of California Wildfires: Humans.
2007 a fallen power line near San Diego set off a fire that scorched nearly 200,000 acres and killed two people.
In 2009, sparks from a weed cutter are thought to have led to an 8,700 acre fire in Santa Barbara County that torched 80 homes.
And earlier this month, an illegal campfire started in Rancho Cucamonga grew to 2,700 acres.
Other area fires have been blamed on chains dragging behind cars and throwing off sparks, smoldering cigarette butts, welding tools, errant gunfire, and arsonists.
"It's anything you could possibly think of," said Alexandra Syphard, a San Diego scientist at the non-profitConservation Biology Institute who has combed through thousands of California wildfire reports to understand what's causing the fires. "You see the wildest things. One of them was a satanic ritual."
A more common culprit: outdoor equipment, from power saws to lawnmowers. Power tools accounted for more than 20 percent of fires in San Diego County between 2000 and 2010. That was followed by fires caused by campfires (nearly 10 percent), arson (roughly 5 percent), trash burning (around 4 percent), vehicles doing things like sending out sparks or igniting vegetation with overheated tailpipes, downed or malfunctioning power lines, kids playing with fire, and cigarettes
This from site: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140517-san-marcos-wildfires-california-weather/
By Warren Cornwall, for National Geographic
However more recent and maybe national geographic..is not enough...more recent maybe to prove that we are investigating 'whom' caused the fire's not what makes it worse...which is what is lacking in this article which wants to blame it all on climate change being ignored...
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-northern-california-fires-live-cause-of-raging-norcal-fires-remains-1507766476-htmlstory.html
Goodbye all I will find a more unbiased place to uncover the truth and then actual solutions, than to just blame the government...
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:56 AM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
Book title correction again (copy pasted the wrong one from my previous comments on another OP)
“Seven Bad Ideas - How mainstream economists have damaged America and the World”
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:47 AM on 19 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
RedBaron,
Everything you say about the USA is correct 'about the USA' and other nations like the USA.
This is a global problem. And what nigelj points out has happened/is happening in many nations, particularly in South America where beef production is Big Business fueling the elimination of rain forest and displacing many people who could live relatively self-sufficiently if they did not have the environment they need to be self-sufficient taken from them for 'Big Private Economic Interests'.
A similar thing happened in China with many people displaced from self-sufficient living by the reserviour of the massive geo-engineering project that is the Three Gorges Dam.
And displacing people from self-sufficient living is one of the insideous things that develops because of the absurd way economists measure reduction of poverty. They actually consider a self-sufficient person to be earning Zero and hence be in extreme poverty. Displacing such a person to live in a hovel on the perimeter of a city and earning $1/day is actually evaluated to be an improvement. and if the income of such a displaced person rises high enough that person is considered to have had 'their life raised out of extreme poverty'.
The World Bank has recently increased the extreme Poverty line to $1.90/day and higher extreme Poverty line numbers for as reported by NRP. Quoting the NPR report, "...the World Bank has <also> come up with two new "poverty line" figures for the world's middle-income countries: $3.20 a day for lower middle income nations (like Egypt, India and the Philippines) and $5.50 a day for upper middle income nations (like Brazil, Jamaica and South Africa)."
Before that increase, the World Bank had set earning below $1.25/day income level as extreme Poverty in the 15 poorest nations. And as nations become wealthier the measure of extreme poverty goes up to $2.50/day based on the average of all nations except the bottom 15.
In the book “Seven Bad Ideas - How mainstream economists have America and the World” by Jeff Madrick (published in 2014) includes the point that though economic development measures show reduction of people living below $1.25/day and claimed as proof hat what is going on is Good, there has been no reduction of the number of people living below $2.50/day.
So the better understanding of the World Bank means that even the previous economist evaluations claiming reduction of poverty by counting the damaging displacement of reasonably self-sufficient people as a 'part of the measured benefit' actually did not 'reduce poverty'. Look for reports where that 'correction of understanding is explained'. My bet is they will be difficult to find, and they will not be part of the basis for changes of mind about actions by many of the current day Winners/Leaders who have a history of claiming that any and all economic activity is fundamentally good and should be promoted and encouraged even if it can be understood to be unsustainable and damaging, because the net-result 'as determined by ecomomists' is a 'positive one' and there is popular regional or tribal support for the activity.
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Swayseeker at 23:18 PM on 18 December 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #50
Regarding the Arctic report card, maybe one can cool off Arctic waters slightly again and grow more food like this: Use a heat pump to take heat from the ocean and put the heat into huge greenhouses to grow food in Nuuk, etc. The heat pump could be powered by wind power (wind turbines, etc). Heat pumps are very efficient - a little power provides a lot of heat. If you had massive greenhouses you may be able to start a thriving food industry. The air is often colder than the sea, so if you pump heat from the sea having T= 0 deg C into a greenhouse with T=10 deg C it will be very efficient (warm sea, relatively). Massive greenhouses could take a lot of heat from the ocean - perhaps enough to make a little difference locally. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump
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