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One Planet Only Forever at 03:38 AM on 23 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Tom13,
You are clearly misunderstanding what El Nino is.
Even if you looked into El Nino a little more you might still misunderstand its relationship with global warming. It is complex, but understandable with a little effort.
NOAA is one of the groups that reports its measurement of the status of the ENSO cycle (La Nina, El Nino). It is the NOAA Ocean Nino Index (ONI).
The explanation of the NOAA ONI process is presented by NOAA on the tabulated summary of the ONI values.
The presentation includes the understanding that they need to update the baseline for determining if the Nino 3.4 region of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean is warmer or cooler than average.
The NOAA presentation of their updates of the 30-year averages every 5 years shows that the 5 year averages have been increasing. That increase is not a natural variation. That increase is due to the warming caused by the added GHG created by human activity.
The 30-year averages have increased about 0.3 C. That is significant compared to the threshhold of + 0.5 C for declaring La Nina or El Nino. If NOAA did not adjust the ONI baseline then eventually there would be no identified La Nina events. And with a little more human induced global warming eventually El Nino would be identified as permanent. That would be a massive misunderstanding since the Nino 3.4 would still be cycling warmer and cooler than the average.
Properly understanding many aspects of climate science requires the setting aside of personal preferences for information that excuses a personal desire to benefit from the burning of fossil fuels. Once you have set aside personal belief preferences you will be able to more effectively analyse the legitimacy of information sources.
Warning - if you do not set aside your personal interests you will struggle to properly understand many things, potentially going so far as to believe/claim that information like NOAA's ONI is fake because they revise the numbers every 5 years, and by extension believing that everything from NOAA or NASA or any other major science group that is contrary to your preferred beliefs is fake.
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Lampacres at 03:02 AM on 23 November 2017Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
There’s no such thing as the radiative greenhouse effect. I accept it’s a rather bold statement, so let me explain why;
Do you agree that the heat flow equation (for plane parallel) is: Q = sigma * (T1^4 – T2^4) ?
The net difference between the radiative ENERGY which is emitted from both surfaces will result in HEAT being transferred to the surface of the cooler object and this will result in the TEMPERATURE of the cooler surface increasing. It may also result in the TEMPERATURE of the warmer surface decreasing (if the warmer object does not have it’s own power source). Either way, HEAT will continue to be transferred to the cooler object until thermodynamic equilibrium is achieved, when Q =0. At this point no further HEAT is transferred, although both surfaces continue to emit ENERGY. The TEMPERATURE of both surfaces will thereafter remain constant.
When confronted with this statement of truth, many climate experts will revert to the “restricted emissions” argument where the back radiation from the shell inhibits the warmer object from emitting it’s internal ENERGY thus causing the warmer object to HEAT itself and thus cause an increase in TEMPERATURE of the warmer surface.
If this is your claim, show me the part in the HEAT FLOW equation where it states that the primary object, T1, stops emitting because it is prevented from doing so by the secondary object, T2?
The heat flow equation states that T1 emits fully, at: sigma * T1^4, all of the time; it never has its energy “stopped up” inside of itself. And, the ENERGY from the 2nd body (if it's cooler than the 1st body) can’t act as HEAT. The 2nd body does not stop the 1st one from emitting. The 2nd body never sends back more ENERGY to the first than the first sends to the 2nd, hence the 2nd can never HEAT the 1st.
Photons don’t act like electrons. Photons are bosons. Bosons stack upon themselves and can share the same space. They are waves, not particles. Normal matter is particulate and can NOT stack upon itself…if you try to shove matter together it takes up more space. Much confusion is caused by a misunderstanding between particulate material and photon waves. The waves from the secondary (cooler) object don’t suddenly become part of “the commitment” from the primary (warmer) object…photon waves don’t add up like that. If you take two equal waves and pass them through each other, at some point in the phase overlap the amplitude of the combined wave will double…and also at some point during the overlap the two waves will cancel each other out. But the effect is on the amplitude. The effect is not on the frequency. You would need a change in the frequency in order to increase temperature, but when identical waves combine they do not change their frequency. This is why the waves from the secondary object only resonate and scatter…they can’t do anything to the frequency of the existing vibrations in the primary object.
That’s the plane parallel scenario dealt with.
Now to move to a steel shell around a sphere where the sphere has it’s own internal power source.
If you agree that only net ENERGY can cause HEAT transfer, and providing that you also agree that the only object which experiences HEAT (and thus experiences a TEMPERATURE increase) is that object where, on it’s surface, Powerin > Powerout i.e. if the power received by an object is greater than the power emitted by that object, then the [positive] difference will be manifested as HEAT upon the surface of that object, and this HEAT will increase the TEMPERATURE of that object, then we can proceed as this the essence of the 2nd LoT.
The model that we are now considering is slightly more complicated than the plane parallel model because of the distance between the outside of the sphere (say having radius 1m) and the inside surface of the shell (say having radius 2m): the surface areas of the two objects are not identical. I therefore suggest that it is more convenient to use power densities (with units of W/m2) rather than absolute power values, so we can say HEAT will be transferred across the [single] boundary between the two objects when PowerDensityin > PowerDensityout and that HEAT will be experienced only by that object where the net difference is positive.
When the temperature of the sphere is Tsphere then, at the surface of the sphere, the PowerDensitysphere = sigma * Tsphere4
When the temperature of the shell is Tshell then, at the surface of the shell, the PowerDensityshell = sigma * Tshell4
Let's consider what happens at each surface;
At the surface of the shell, all of the sphere's emissions are received by the shell. However, due the inverse square law, the PowerDensity of the sphere's own emissions are dissipated over the larger area of the shell (and on the dimensions provided we conveniently know that the surface area of the shell is four times that of the sphere). Nevertheless, if at the surface of the shell PowerDensityin > PowerDensityout then the shell will receive HEAT.
At the surface of the sphere, due to the angle of view from the surface of the shell, not all of the shell's emissions are received by the sphere (some will radiate onto another part of the shell's own surface, again without transferring HEAT). Only if Rshell = Rsphere , will 100% of the shell's PowerDensity leaving the inside surface of the shell be received by the surface of the sphere. Nevertheless, if at the surface of the sphere, PowerDensityin > PowerDensityout then the sphere will receive HEAT.
Hopefully, we can still agree on all of the above, because it's still 2nd LoT. If we do agree, then;
If Tsphere is greater (warmer) than Tshell then HEAT may (depending upon the respective PowerDensity values at the inside surface of the shell) be transferred to the shell (and no HEAT will be transferred to the sphere). Conversely, if Tshell is greater (warmer) than Tsphere then HEAT may (depending upon the two respective PowerDensity values at the surface of the sphere) be transferred to the sphere (and no HEAT will be transferred to the shell).
For a sphere with no internal power source of it's own, the concept of introducing a shell around the sphere actually does decrease the rate of cooling experienced by the sphere (than it would otherwise do as is dissipates it's ever decreasing ENERGY into a 0K environment) but unless the shell was warmer than the sphere at the point the shell was introduced, the sphere will never get hotter.
For a sphere with it's own internal power source, the concept of introducing a shell around the sphere does not change the rate at which the sphere dissipates it's ENERGY to satisfy it’s Stefan-Boltzmann commitment i.e. the temperature of the shell does not impair the sphere from radiating it's ENERGY and so the TEMPERATURE of the sphere does not increase (unless the shell was warmer than the sphere at the point it was introduced - but even then, the increase in TEMPERATURE would be transient).
The (false) argument that the introduction of the shell around the sphere prevents the sphere from radiating it's due power density of: sigma * T4 (and so gets warmer from it's own heat) appears to be derived from the erroneous belief that the net energy difference is calculated as the difference between PowerDensityin - minus zero (being the amount it would have received had the shell not been present). This can be shown to be a fallacy if we let the radius of the shell be diminished to it's minimum value i.e. the radius of the shell is reduced to be that of the sphere. In this scenario, the "restricted emissions" argument says that at thermal equilibrium, the PowerDensityshell = PowerDensitysphere and because the shell radiates this on both surfaces, the surface of the sphere also receives PowerDensityshell as HEAT. If this were indeed true, the Sphere would have it's own constant power source of Psphere plus that which receives from the shell (PowerDensityin minus zero), which is Pshell (which is also Psphere) i.e. this is 2*P. But the original model only generates 1 * P. The incorrect "restricted emissions" logic has resulted in the creation of energy (by a factor of two, no less) - something that the 1st LoT says is not possible.
If you now substitute the sphere with internal power source for the Earth and it’s constant ENERGY from our sun and substitute the steel shell for greenhouse gases at the top of the atmosphere then you will now see that the whole radiative Greenhouse effect story has been mathematically busted – the Earth’s surface does not get hotter from back-radiation from the atmosphere.
Moderator Response:[PS] This is an absurd travesty of the actual physics. You would possibly benefit from detailed look at the physics at scienceofdoom assuming you want to understand the problem as opposed to trying to convince yourself that you are justified in opposing climate action.
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John Hartz at 02:31 AM on 23 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Daniel Bailey or SteveS:
Given the scale of the graph, would the impacts of ENSO variations even be discernible?
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SteveS at 02:04 AM on 23 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
In addition, incoming solar radiation is accounted for in the blue line. You need to click on the links and read them to understand what you're seeing.
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citizenschallenge at 02:03 AM on 23 November 2017Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms
".. a recent study..." How about some references to which study?
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John Hartz at 01:41 AM on 23 November 2017Ocean acidification isn't serious
[JH] Recommended supplemental reading:
Ocean acidification: climate change's evil twin by Lars Bevanger, Deutsche Welle (DW), Nov 21, 2017
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aleks at 01:32 AM on 23 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
It's too difficult to answer all comments at once. I'd like to invite my opponents to analyze together the data from two publications related to the main problem of our discussion: CO2 in the atmosphere and seawater acidity. Doug Mackle (OA is not OK, #14) shows a graph of pH versus depth in Pacific and Atlantic (Fig.13). In more recent article by Z.Ernest a.o. there is a similar graph pH vs. depth along with the graph of the dependence CO2 concentration (T CO2) in water on the depth (see below).
Values of pH at water surface in both articles confirm the difference between Pacific and Atlantic. How to explain this difference if we assume that ocean acidity is determined by CO2 uniformly distributed in the atmosphere?
Left and right graphs clearly show that significant difference between pH at zero depth in Atlantic and Pacific corresponds to almost equal values of T CO2 (how to explain?). It can be seen that increase of TCO2 from 2000 to 2350 (Pacific, depth from 0 to 500m) decreases pH from 7.82 to 7.3. So, increase in CO2 concentration by 17.5% leads to growth of [H+] of 3.3 times. The result can not be explained from the point of view of a chemist. I think that the analysis of these data allows to doubt the correctness of the theory that explains the ocean acidity only by the presence of CO2.
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Daniel Bailey at 01:31 AM on 23 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Oceanic oscillations by definition cannot sustain a long term trend.
You need to up your game to compete in this forum.
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Tom13 at 01:24 AM on 23 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Figure 1 is the first graph in this article - between paragraph 2 and pargraph 3
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Tom13 at 00:34 AM on 23 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
[PS] If Tom13 is trying to indicate that climate is not following natural forcings or that models fail to reproduce past variations,
The graph in figure 1 asserts the warming attributable to natural forcings since circa 1860 has been flat. That assertion would seem highly unlikely. As previously noted, the blue line representing the natural forcings, do not include then AMo/PDO cycles, nor the El nino spikes, nor the increase in TSI (with the links previously attached), which has shown a general long term upward trend (albiet with a small down turn since the mid 1950's while still maintaining the general upward trend).
Those well known factors are not incorporated in the blue line representing the natural forcings.
Moderator Response:[JH] Please provide the source for Figure 1 and a link to it.
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michael sweet at 22:02 PM on 22 November 2017CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration
Patrickjl,
What Eclectic said x2.
Chiefio restates questions as problems when the answers are well knows. For example, he questions wether we know the ratio of C12/13 at midocean ridges. Seems like a good question since the mid-ocean ridges are underwater. Except Iceland is a midocean ridge with many active volcanoes so this ratio has been measured. Undoubtedly scientists have also measured this ratio for other mid-ocean ridges.
This is not an issue of scientists not knowing the answers but Chiefio has made no effort to find the answers to the questions he asks. There is probably a lot of Chiefio ignoring the answers when they are provided to him.
It is easy to make any problem look hard if you ignore the answers scientists have found.
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TokyoTom at 13:41 PM on 22 November 2017The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Grypo/moderators, I thank you for the link to my blog at the bottom of your post, but note that the link has changed as I migrated hosts. The current link to the referenced post is: http://tokyotom.freecapitalists.org/2010/02/10/productive-libertarian-approach-climate-energy-environmental-issues/
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Eclectic at 13:37 PM on 22 November 2017CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration
Patrickjl @3 , your chiefio.wordpress reference = a waste of time.
It is a 2009 article, containing one or two thinly specious arguments [e.g. that recent forest clearing favoring C4-metabolism grasses which deal with carbon-13 slightly differently from C3 plants . . . thus contaminating/invalidating the standard C12/C13 ratio conclusions].
Worse, the arguments are not quantified (i.e. are little more than handwaving).
Worse still, they are accompanied by the Usual Suspects -— a grabbag of run-of-the-mill anti-science nonsense arguments, all long-debunked but living a zombie-like undead existence on Denialist websites.
[ The author himself claims to be a frequent contributing author at WUWT. My apologies, if that is taken as an Ad Hominem ! ;-) ]
All in all, chiefio-wordpress is a waste of readers' time.
Sorry for the harsh review, Patrick. "Chiefio" was a waste of your time, too.
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wili at 12:35 PM on 22 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Thanks, nigel. As Alley points out, we don't worry about these things because they are the most probable outcomes, but because they are not at all impossible, and would pose very great risks...low odds, perhaps, but very high stakes. We don't put our seatbelts on because we think it highly likely that we will get in a crash on that particular ride. But the possibly lethal consequences of not putting it on if that one and a ten-thousand chance happened to be on that ride make it a logical choice.
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patrickjl at 12:09 PM on 22 November 2017CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration
I find this one bit hard. While I can accept what is written above, I come unstuck when comparing it all with what is written at: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-trouble-with-c12-c13-ratios/
Is there any simple answer or is the complexity muddying the waters?
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John Hartz at 11:37 AM on 22 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Recommended supplemental reading:
Antarctic glacier's rough belly exposed by Jonathan Amos, BBC News, Nov 20, 2017
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nigelj at 06:39 AM on 22 November 2017Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms
These superstorms in the past appear many orders of magnitude greater than even worst case scenario of increasing hurricane intensity (which is bad enough). Yet these superstorms appear to have occured in period of CO2 concentrations similar to where we are heading.
So assuming evidence for superstorms is convincing, is the current scientific modelling too conservative? Or has it missed some unusual weather / climate phenomenon? Could something cause radical regional ocean warming like a hot spot, at just right time of year to cause incredibly intense storms in some locations? Maybe change in ocean currents. Because what else could it possibly be?
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nigelj at 06:12 AM on 22 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Just on this rapid sea level rise issue. We know that in distant past coming out of the last ice age, sea level rise has been very rapid in bursts of several metres over decades, so such things are not unprecedented. For example:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/oceans-can-rise-in-sudden-bursts/
The situation was different then, but its a thing that should make us think hard. It appears Antractic could follow similar pattern of fairly rapid melt leading to a couple of metres on decadal time scales as opposed to several centuries. It is unlikely to be as rapid as in the past, but could still be rapid enough to be a deadly serious concern.
The important thing is to attach probability to this especially in public discussions and media. The probablity would be reasonably low, but the issue is still serious because of the implications, and risk level even with low probability.
What has to be avoided is crazy media releases "sea level set to rise three metres over decades" without in depth qualification and probablities. Such scaremongering will not help credibility of climate community. Yet at the same time possibility of rapid rise needs to be made public, but carefully described in cool headed way.
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nigelj at 05:35 AM on 22 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
The 40% of Americans in denial of evolution are probably the same group sceptical of climate science, and vaccines, and they are probably the same people who believe the moon landings were fake, and 911 was an inside job. Foolishness and ignorance loves company.
Just out of interest I googled my own speculation, to try to find some evidential support, and first hit was interesting article on conspiracy theories by Scientific American as below "Why people believe in conspiracy theories":
www.scientificamerican.com/article/moon-landing-faked-why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories/
Some tasty little samples:
"A popular example of such higher-order beliefs is a severe “distrust of authority.” The authors go on to suggest that conspiracism is therefore not just about belief in an individual theory, but rather an ideological lens through which we view the world."
"Interestingly, belief in conspiracy theories has recently been linked to the rejection of science. In a paper published in Psychological Science, Stephen Lewandowsky and colleagues investigated the relation between acceptance of science and conspiricist thinking patterns. While the authors' survey was not representative of the general population, results suggest that (controlling for other important factors) belief in multiple conspiracy theories significantly predicted the rejection of important scientific conclusions, such as climate science or the fact that smoking causes lung cancer. Yet, rejection of scientific principles is not the only possible consequence of widespread belief in conspiracy theories. Another recent study indicates that receiving positive information about or even being merely exposed to conspiracy theories can lead people to become disengaged from important political and societal topics."
Moderator Response:[PS] Just a little note to commentators to say "Eagleflight" was yet another manifestation of banned serial sockpuppet cosmowarrior et al. Removed and thread cleaned of all references. Sorry to those who wasted time replying this idiot. You were wasting your time.
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wili at 05:00 AM on 22 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
And more recently (as in today):
grist.org/article/antarctica-doomsday-glaciers-could-flood-coastal-cities/
Doomsday on IceRapid collapse of Antarctic glaciers could flood coastal cities by the end of this century.
By Eric Holthaus on Nov 21, 2017
"The only place in the world where you can see ice-cliff instability in action today is at Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland, one of the fastest-collapsing glaciers in the world. DeConto says that to construct their model, they took the collapse rate of Jakobshavn, cut it in half to be extra conservative, then applied it to Thwaites and Pine Island."
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wili at 04:47 AM on 22 November 2017Video: Climate, Sea Level, and Superstorms
I thought a recent study determined that a storm the size of Sandy could have moved that boulder to where it is, given the special topograph of the location mentioned in the film. Is it deceptive a bit to still use it as a backdrop? Or should we say, hey, we're already at that point, and it's gonna get worse from here!"?
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william5331 at 04:46 AM on 22 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
What Americans do or don't believe is hardly a measure of anything but gross ignorance. After all, survey after survey shows that 40% of them think that the world was created around 6000 years ago and deny the theory of evolution.
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wili at 04:45 AM on 22 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Richard Alley, the glaciologist who the MIT atmospheric physicist Kerry Emanuel described as the world’s foremost expert on the relationship of ice and climate, discussing recent ice sheet model results in 2016. At Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica,
“once you get off of the stabilizing sill, whenever that is in West Antarctica, the time scale of getting rid of the West Antarctic [3.3m GMSLR, 4m in the Northern Hemisphere], it’s not centuries, it’s multi-decadal. This is not maybe the best case, it’s not the worst case.”
At 31:40 in this presentation www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7MNA44RMNA
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wili at 04:42 AM on 22 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
From the NY Times : “When I asked Richard Alley, almost certainly the most respected glaciologist in the United States, whether he would be surprised to see Thwaites collapse in his lifetime, he drew a breath. Alley is 58. ‘‘Up until very recently, I would have said, ‘Yes, I’d be surprised,’ ’’ he told me. ‘‘Right now, I’m not sure..."
www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-secrets-in-greenlands-ice-sheets.html?_r=0
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wili at 04:39 AM on 22 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
In an interview, Richard Alley said that he could no longer rule out the possibility that Thwaites would disintigrate within his life time. He's 60. How much srl would that generate?
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MA Rodger at 18:31 PM on 21 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
michael sweet @23,
Concerning 'insignificance' of the issue raised by the commenter 'aleks', there is a polution issue identified with SO2 which extends to very local OA in regions where heavy shipping vent tanks used to scrub SO2 from their exhaust fumes. The rest of his OA blather is more vacuous than fumes.
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DrivingBy at 13:01 PM on 21 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
" It could take decades or centuries, but..."
No, we will not have ten feet of SLR in "decades" under any likely scenario. In an unknown number of centuries, yes.30 years from now, no way. Anthrogenic SLR is quite real, but the quoted formulation is easily seen as misdirection.
This sort of thing does not help our credibility. Sure, articles written by scientists don't get read because average people want drama and excitement, not probabilities and statistics and certainly not numbers, unless it's numbers for Lotto. But when journalists cover science, the result is usually 90% journalism, 9% random and 1% science, except the that1% will be half wrong.
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nigelj at 10:59 AM on 21 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Tom @3
1) The line representing the natural variations shows no increase for the 2015/2016 el nino,
It doesn't show 2015 el nino spike, and any other el nino. This is probably because El nino / la nina is a repeating very short term cycle, that doesnt show a long term trend upwards or downwards. Its flat in other words on time scales more than a decade.
"2) The line representing the natural variations shows no warming for the warming side of the pdo/amo cycle which was generally credited from the early 1980's through the late 1990's,"
It doesnt show pdo warming, or cooling side either, because its a roughly 20 year cycle upwards and downwards so not driving longer term trends. Its also not big causal factor in warming, its affects are complicated, and trend was peaking in 1980 and falling gradually after 1980. See article below.
www.skepticalscience.com/Pacific-Decadal-Oscillation.htm
"3) the line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the emergence from the little ice age,"
Thats because theres no such effect. An emergence is just a vague word, not something quantified.
"4) The line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the long term general increase in solar radiance for the period from 1850 through 2015."
Theres no long term general increase. There was increase in solar irradiance from approx 1920 - 1980 which is reflected in the slight positive slopes in the global warming "index" graph in article over those periods. I'm going from data on solar irradiance here from 'sorce', the official people who compile this as below:
lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/files/2011/09/TIM_TSI_Reconstruction-1.png
It's also important to recall effect of solar irradiance changes is much less in watts / m2 than CO2.
"My citation to the two solar radiance links, both of which show a general long term increase in solar radiance are directly on point"
Your citation is someones weather blog, that is unclear on original source on data, and shows two contradictory graphs. The actual real data is as follows from 'Sorce' as I stated above.
Moderator Response:[PS] If Tom13 is trying to indicate that climate is not following natural forcings or that models fail to reproduce past variations, then it would helpful if he and commentators would reference 5.3.5.3 of the IPCC WG1 report (or the referenced papers). The relevant graphic is here showing temperature reconstructions, simulations from models and natural forcings.
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ubrew12 at 10:51 AM on 21 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Tom13@3 said: "The line representing the natural variations... [doesn't match the natural drivers that I think it should match]" Tom, the line is from a physical model of the atmosphere and its climate drivers. If you think you have a superior understanding, the obvious request is that you build your own model, make predictions with it from 1850 on, and see if it does a superior job. Otherwise, its like someone building the Golden Gate Bridge, and you saying "I could have done better." Well, talk is cheap...
You're speaking on behalf of an industry that makes a trillion dollars a year in pure profit. Don't you think they can afford a model? Case in point: you think models from 1850-on should reflect some 'rebound' from the Little Ice Age. But the LIA ended around 1700. Why should there be 'rebound' and how much 'rebound' should there be? And that's why you need a model: so you can put that in and prove it matters. People who actually build models don't include effects, like the LIA, that they don't think applies. That's their perogative. You can insist on deaf ears that they do it anyway. But if you can't lean on your incredibly wealthy fossil friends to build a competing model, you'll be ignored. The scientists are not including the LIA to be nasty to you. They genuinely don't think it matters. If you do, prove it.
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scaddenp at 10:16 AM on 21 November 2017Climate Bet for Charity, 2016 Update
I wonder if "Kiwi thinker" has revised his opinions on climate change. Good to see the image still being updated.
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Sunspot at 10:07 AM on 21 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
I was going to point out to Tom13 that his statement that solar irradiance has increased from 1850 to 2015 is totally false. Any solar astronomer knows that the sun has been slightly cooler than normal for decades, and this is forecast to continue for at least a few more decades. It's called a Maunder Minimum.
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Tom13 at 09:41 AM on 21 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
A few observations
1) The line representing the natural variations shows no increase for the 2015/2016 el nino,
2) The line representing the natural variations shows no warming for the warming side of the pdo/amo cycle which was generally credited from the early 1980's through the late 1990's,
3) the line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the emergence from the little ice age,
4) The line representing the natural variations shows no effect for the long term general increase in solar radiance for the period from 1850 through 2015.That is just the first four items in the study that jump out which do not reconcile with known natural events..
weather.plus/total-solar-irradiance-tsi.php
lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/data/tsi-data/
www.iceagenow.info/historical-total-solar-irradiance/
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic snipped.
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michael sweet at 09:03 AM on 21 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
Aleks:
On doing background reading on the topic of CO2 and ocean acidification I found this reference. It appears to be classroom material written by someone who does research in this area.
It states:
"At typical surface seawater pH of 8.2, the speciation between [CO2], [HCO3−], and [CO3 2−] is 0.5%, 89%, and 10.5%,"
Looking back at your calculation at 9, you claim that 34 mmol of CO2 would yield 0.12 mmol of H+ ions. At 19 you state that the .12 mmol is 30 times too high.
The actual value of the mmol of H+ ions formed from 34 mmol of CO2 is about 37 mmol. The calculations you base your argument on are off by approximately a factor of 9,000 or four orders of magnitude.
It appears that you used the properties of distilled water for your calculation and not the properties of the ocean. Since we are discussing Ocean Acidification, you must use a pH of 8.2 in your calculation.
You have botched the calculation. When done correctly it is clear that CO2 is the primary contributor. We do not even have to consider that NO2 and SO2 are removed by the environment. You would not receive a passing grade in my AP Chemistry class for this work.
When I tried to Google the contribution of NO2 and SO2 to ocean acidification I was unable to find any information, even in frequently asked questions. The contribution of these ions must be insignificant or I would have found it. You have provided no links to support your wild claims.
Scientists have shown that your agument is based on flawed calculations and has no merit.
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MA Rodger at 07:53 AM on 21 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
The statement @19 that "we know about increase of CO2 in atmosphere after industrial revolution, and we know that emission of SO2 and NO2 also increased significantly at the same time," deserves critical assessment.
We do indeed know that anthropogenic CO2 emissions (which are not balanced by absorption) are 100x bigger than natural ones. Increases in SO2 and NO2 are less widely known.
However as the graph below shows, we can say for SO2 that annual anthropogenic SO2 emissions peaked at some 70Mt(S). These are not 100x the natural emissions which are estimated by Fischer (2008) to be 100Mt(S). Thus peak man-made SO2 emissions did not even exceed the natural emissions.
The values for NO2 have not appeared so easily butfor NO & NO2 we can say that "Globally, quantities of nitrogen oxides produced naturally (by bacterial and volcanic action and lightning) far outweigh anthropogenic (man-made) emissions."
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nigelj at 07:07 AM on 21 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Kiwiano, regarding changes in ice sheet volumes, and implications for specific regional sea level rise, and including gravity effects, I just read this article below recently.
"NASA just launched an online tool to show you which coastal cities will be swallowed when global warming ramps up"
The tool is linked from this article, very sophisticated tool and graphics, rather geeky but may be of interest to people.
bgr.com/2017/11/16/global-warming-nasa-world-map-tool-sea-level-rise/
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Kiwiiano at 06:57 AM on 21 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
Re ”Fails to make timescale clear”....to be fair the timescale is anything but clear, with so many intangibles to consider. In particular the rate of the polar ice cap melts in relation to each other. It mildly spooked me when it was observed that, say, Oslo has more to fear from the Antarctic because currently Greenland’s gravitational mass is drawing water toward it, so if/when it melts nearby regions like Oslo will have a sea level fall. This suggests the levels may fall initially but rise as more water returns to the oceans. Just when and what the different effects will be globally are blind guesses.
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nigelj at 06:49 AM on 21 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Yes I think bad weather is clearly making people take notice.There is much we can do individually about climate problem, without having to be forced, but humans are followers. It also needs strong political and business leadership, plus carbon fee and dividend scheme.
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John Hartz at 06:34 AM on 21 November 2017It hasn't warmed since 1998
Recommended supplemental reading:
Missing Arctic temperature data, not Mother Nature, created the seeming slowdown of global warming from 1998 to 2012, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change.
A University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and his colleagues in China constructed the first data set of surface temperatures from across the world that significantly improves representation of the Arctic during the "global warming hiatus."
Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF's International Arctic Research Center, said he collaborated with colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese agencies studying Arctic warming to analyze temperature data collected from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean.
"We recalculated the average global temperatures from 1998-2012 and found that the rate of global warming had continued to rise at 0.112C per decade instead of slowing down to 0.05C per decade as previously thought," said Zhang.
The new data also improved estimates of the global warming and the Arctic warming rate.
Added Arctic data shows global warming didn't pause, Phys.org, Nov 20, 2017
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nigelj at 05:22 AM on 21 November 2017Battered by extreme weather, Americans are more worried about climate change
Regarding lack of reporting of 97% consensus in media. The media don't report this as IMO they prefer to keep controversy alive as it makes news. They like to make out theres huge difference of opinion to keep stories going.
This is irresponsible and has to stop, because its deadly serious issue. Media have a duty of care to society to inform people of consensus.
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nigelj at 04:54 AM on 21 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #46
American leadership on climate policy? Ha ha you must be joking. They cant even agree on the basic science.
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nigelj at 04:21 AM on 21 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
OPOF @7, fair comments. I have no argument with you on the technology, and ideal options.
It's politics. In America it's probably coal fired with CCS or nothing right now. Those are the options, until a new administration is elected.
I dont like it any more than you do.
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michael sweet at 03:35 AM on 21 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
Aleks:
According to your Wikipedia reference the Ka of H2CO3 is:
2.5 x 10-4. (Ka does not have units)
The apparent Ka of carbon dioxide when dissolved in water is :
4.5 x 10-7.
The difference is caused by the fact that most of the carbon is CO2 and not H2CO3.
In your calculation at 9 you used the value for the apparent Ka of CO2 and not the actual Ka of H2CO3. That means your revised calculation at 19:
"Accounting for this value reduces amount of hydrogen ions fron CO2 found before about 30 times."
is incorrect. In addition, the value would change by 300 times, not 30 times. As you read more you are becoming less accurate in your calculations. You were closer the first time.
When you do not know what you are doing it is difficult to be scientifically convincing. Perhaps it would be better to read the OA is not OK series and see if you can figure out the chemistry before you claim that all oceanographers do not know what they are doing.
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michael sweet at 03:09 AM on 21 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
Aleks:
When I balance the equation of nitrate ions to nitrogen gas I get:
10e- + 12H+ 2NO3- --> N2 + 6H2O
Since bacteris convert nitrate to organic nitrogen, and eventually nitrogen gas, this means that for every nitric acid molecule that dissolves in the ocean it removes 5 atoms of H+. That would cause the pH to go up and not down. Sulfate ion also is reduces and consumes H+ wqhen it dissolves in the ocean.
Please provide peer reviewed evidence that nitrate and sulfate dissolving in the ocean will cause the pH to drop and not rise as I have demonstrated.
Since you have not provided any evidence to support your wild claims I do not need to provide any additional evidence to support my claims.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:49 AM on 21 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
nigelj,
I acknowledge that CCS on coal burning results in less CO2 per unit of useable electricity than natural gas fired generators, even better than combined cycle gas turbine generation.
However, that same coal burning facility with CCS would be even better if it is converted to gas burning with CCS. The gas burning with CCS would also reduce many other nasty side-effects of coal burning, while still creating a few nasty side-effects beyond making new excess CO2.
So technically I am pointing out that burning coal to generate electricity is not an acceptable option, no matter how much more it costs to convert existing coal burners to more responsibly generate electricity in the short-term (prior to 2050 when all of the more fortunate people need to have terminated their attempts to 'benefit more from the burning of fossil fuel').
A final point. CCS on fossil fuel burning does not count towards the identified need to 'remove carbon from the atmosphere'. The net result of fossil fuel burning with CCS is still a net increase of carbon in the atmosphere.
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FreeThinker1984 at 01:11 AM on 21 November 2017Climate's changed before
"First, to infer that humans can't be behind today's climate change because climate changed before humans is bad reasoning (a non-sequitur)."
Nobody suggested this, not even in your quote. We're just saying that the whole concept of climate change being a problem is ridiculous. Because the climate always changes, by definition. Too fast climate change might be a problem. Humans breath out CO2 and breath in Oxygen, of course we affect our environment. Nobody disputes that. Please stop with the straw-men arguments. We're just saying that there's no reason to assume change is necessarily bad. We have to do actual science instead of fear mongering.
"Second, to imply we have nothing to fear from today's climate change is not borne out by the lessons from rapid climate changes in Earth's past."
When archeologists say 'rapid', they mean thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. When the collection of species in an ecosystem changes it sounds really bad. Suggesting that all the animals normally just live their happy lives, but with such a change they all suddenly die. This is not how reality works. Animals struggle to live their most of their life. An environmental change that causes the species to change just means some species become a little less successful at that every year and some a little more. So an individual animal probably won't notice the difference.
Moderator Response:[PS] "We're just saying that there's no reason to assume change is necessarily bad. We have to do actual science instead of fear mongering." Yes, lets indeed to the science. You can find that science summarized nicely in WG2. You will also find the scientific answers to of many of the myths about rapid change here under the section "Its not bad". Your concluding statement is sloganeering, because you are making assertions without providing supporting evidence in the face of established science.
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nigelj at 15:50 PM on 20 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
Ok guys you win. Perhaps the case for coal fired carbon storage and capture in Saskatchewan is weak. My point was really that if Trump is going to be doing coal, and it looks inevitable, he should be true to his word about clean coal, and use carbon storage and capture, retrofit ideally. A point OPOF seems to acknowledge anyway. It may also be still worth experimenting with the technology, its just a little too early to say its a dead end.
The Saskatchewan example is just that, an example that the technolgy does work if properly done. That's all I was saying.
However coal fired power is never my preferred option, and I suppose theres the risk that CCS might encourage it.
On a related topic, the economist.com has a good article as below titled "what they dont tell you about climate change"
It nicely summarises need to suck carbon dioxide out of atmosphere to meet Paris accord, either literally with technology (such stuff exists at a price), carbon capture and storage options, and development of forestry sinks and enhanced soil sinks. It discusses the various possibilities and challenges.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:22 PM on 20 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
nigelj,
The suggestion that Saskatchewan does not have adequate renewable power sources is highly suspicious.
The total population of Saskatchewan is 1.16 million. And a large part of the energy consumed in Saskatchewan is for oil and gas production, an activity that has to be terminated so that makes its energy demand irrelevant (those energy demands are real but they need to disappear in the sustainable future).
The indicated percentages of solar may also be skewed by including the almost unpopulated Northern half of the province which indeed has lower levels of sunlight, especially in the depths of winter. But Saskatchewan also includes many of Canada's sunniest locations as confirmed by the 'Current Results' website summary of Sunniest Places in Canada. The southern area of Saskatchewan where the vast majority of the population lives is quite sunny.
And Southern Saskatchewan is reasonably windy, though perhaps not at the speeds required to optimize wind generation. But then optimum is only the ideal. Power generation is power generation, even if it isn't optimal.
Of course the final criticism of the claim that Saskatchewan lacks non-reneweable energy capability is that electricity storage systems are being ignored when that claim is made. Storage may be more expensive than getting away with burning fossil fuels. But sustainable renewable energy supply systems should not be cost-compared to damaging unsustainable energy systems.
I do however support adding CCS to recently built fossil fuel burning power plants. Proper CCS locked away (not assisting in the extraction of new fossil fuels for burning), can be better than a new gas burning power station, even after considering the power lost to collect and store the CO2. But converting the coal burnet to be a gas burner with CCS would be better. And even if a gas burner with CCS needs to be shut-in before 2050 the lower return on investment is irrelevant since the 'costs' are only a small part of the massive debt owed to the future generations by what the current generation and their predecessors got away with doing.
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nigelj at 11:20 AM on 20 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
Aleks @19
Yes I get partial pressures are the factor, but quantity must be important. Take the extreme hypothetical case of an atmosphere with just one molecule of SO2 in atmosphere and trillion molecules or more of CO2. Which will cause more acidity in oceans? I would have thought CO2.
"Now I have the reliable link to value of the ratio [H2CO3]/[CO2] = 1.2*10-3"
This is not comparison of CO2 against the other gases fully calculated comparing real world quantities of gases and partial pressures and all the processes you mention. Neither does it consider all issues people have raised. The question is which is main cause of acidity in oceans, and this requires full pages of calculations and all data in way that is properly set out and verifiable and can be followed in systematic logical fashion, not quotes of bits and pieces from chemistry textbooks presented in fragmented fashion through blog posts, giving me a headache.
No disrespect meant, you take trouble to post details, and have more chemistry expertise than me easily, but I am very, very perceptive and know from experiences I can spot nonsense reliably.
"Please note that in the last paragraph of post 11 and in post 17 you write N2O instead of NO2. Hope, It is a misprint."
Yeah a missprint. Ha ha!
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aleks at 10:19 AM on 20 November 2017What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?
nigelj @11, 17
About comparison of quantities CO2, NO2, SO2 in atmosphere. Please, let me to recall once more that water acidity from CO2 depends not on its amount in atmosphere, but on concentration of dissolved CO2. This concentration is directly proportional to CO2 partial pressure in the atmosphere (Henry law) and inversely proportional to water temperature (global warming decreases CO2 solubility). We know about increase of CO2 in atmosphere after industrial revolution, and we know that emission of SO2 and NO2 also increased significantly at the same time.
Your idea about comparison of amounts of different gases and their "acidity strengh" is interesting, but unrealizable, because amount of CO2 is relatively stable, while SO2 and NO2 are carried away from atmosphere by water. That's why is possible to compare effect of different gases on acidity by estimation of theie relative emission at fuel combustion (see post 6). Please note that SO2 and NO2 themselves have no "acidity strength": it differs for H2SO3 and H2SO4, for HNO2 and HNO3.
About your proposal (post 17) to demonstrate in quantities "what I mean by small and large amounts". I did such calculation in comment 9. Now I have the reliable link to value of the ratio [H2CO3]/[CO2] = 1.2*10-3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid
Accounting for this value reduces amount of hydrogen ions fron CO2 found before about 30 times. So, let's think about relative contribution of different gases to water acidity.
Please note that in the last paragraph of post 11 and in post 17 you write N2O instead of NO2. Hope, It is a misprint.
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michael sweet at 10:02 AM on 20 November 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
Nigelj,
Your link goes to a report from a think tank. I did not find any information about this think tank with Google, but there are no scientists on the board.
A news release from a think tank reporting on a coal industry project that says there is limited renewable energy in Canada is not a very strong source. The Solutions Project, run by scientists, claims that there is plenty of renewable energy in Canada.
You have to choose how reliable your sources are. In the USA, think tanks are frequently run by fossil fuel interests. I am not familiar with Australian think tanks.
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