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scaddenp at 10:28 AM on 19 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
While I certainly dont believe in limitless growth, I think EV and solar can expand massively. As far as I know Li-ion batteries dont use any rare earth minerals (which as has been pointed out are neither rare nor earth) though NiMh used by Prius does. Various rare earths are very useful for making powerful magnetics and certainly are heavily used by EV. But is this necessary for the tech or simply a good economics at the moment? Turbines are also big users of RE for the exactly the same reason. However, you dont need RE for a turbine. Enercon have 40% of market for wind turbines in Germany and dont use any.
While there are environmental impacts from solar cell production, I am far from convinced that they are larger than the other forms of generation that they are replacing.
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chriskoz at 08:45 AM on 19 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Nigel, let me criticize Tony's talk.
He introduces the technolog adopting curve as an "s-shape". Then focuses on the assending part of the "s" only for trhe rest of his talk. I.e. he assumes that his exponential, even more than exponential, growth in adoption of solar, battery storage, EV and AV (authonomous vehicle) will continue unconstrained.
He does not even considers the known limits of expensive rare earth mineral mining needed for production of batteries and environmental impact of solar cell production and keeps counting the years till solar energy doubling every year becomes so cheap that it disrupts not just utilities but the whole buseness model.
To that bunkum, I can respond: you don't need to fly to the Moon just keep folding a piece of paper until you manage to fold it 50 times. After 50 doublings, a 0.1mm think piece of paper becomes 500,000 km those reaching the Moon. Here is your space trip! It puts the entire NASA program obsolete and all world space agencies of of business. My example is of course sarcastic but logically there is no deifference between it and Toby's talk.
Obviously, Tony's bunkum is a typical application of a pyramid scheme without any considerations of physical resource limits while scaling his ideas to the level of "global disruption". In order to be more realistic, he must show that there is enough resources on the planet for his disruption to be physically possible. Certainly there is enough sunshine, but I'm not so sure about batteries though and speed of battery recharging. There are just basic things. Maybe he explains it a bit in his book and someone who read it can convince me his ideas are a bit more than just pramid scheme, because just listening to him talking, I'm just skeptical and don't even want to waste money on this book.
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scaddenp at 08:10 AM on 19 September 2017How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
Calling Red baron - what do you about the relationship between nitrogen utilization by plant and effects on soil carbon? Nitrogen leaching into waterways is big issue here and there has been some trumpeting over a strain of plantain that can halve nitrogen leach rates. I was wondering what effect that might also have on carbon pathways since I remember a talk which linked the two.
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william5331 at 06:16 AM on 19 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #37
To the deniers, I say, Forget Climate Change
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2010/10/forget-climate-change.html
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Breakyerself at 05:30 AM on 19 September 2017There's no empirical evidence
A lot of the links to sources on the intermediate section are dead links or just go to a top level domain. I've found new links for a few if you want to update them. It's probably not all of them. Just the ones I was looking for anyway.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract(Philipona 2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JD011800/abstract (Wang, 2009)LINK (Chen, 2007)
http://spie.org/Publications/Proceedings/Paper/10.1117/12.556803(Griggs, 2004)
LINK (Harries, 2001)Moderator Response:[PS] Sadly, an endless problem. Thanks for those. I have converted to links.
[RH] Shortened links.
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Tom Dayton at 00:20 AM on 19 September 2017Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
MartianSky: The CC relation by itself applies if all else is equal. But Earth's atmosphere is very diverse, so the CC relation applies in very local conditions. For example, when rain forms in the atmosphere, relative humidity is 100% at that precise spot at that precise time. But even as those raindrops fall, often they pass through air of such different pressure or temperature that the rain evaporates before hitting the ground. The atmosphere varies dramatically and dynamically in pressure and temperature at scales from tiny to huge, so the CC relation can be perfectly valid in each of all those locales, but the availability of water in a given piece of air at a given moment can be inadequate for the water to fully fulfill that role. The availability of particles that act as condensation nuclei also affect the ease of condensation; ultra clean and unmoving air can have relative humidity of more than 100%, similar to a supersaturated solution. In short, the CC relation is not the only thing relevant to relative humidity, and it applies only in approximation at scales larger than micro in the real atmosphere, due to the inhomogeneity of the real atmosphere.
But none of that matters for the purpose of figuring out whether water vapor is a feedback or a forcing of temperature in Earth's conditions. What matters is that, all else being equal, water vapor injected into air at a given temperature and pressure will condense out--in 10 days as a global average.
Moderator Response:[DB] This is yet another iterative sock puppet of serial spammer cosmoswarrior. Leaving the interchange up for edification purposes and transparency.
[PS] Wont do anything to edify our sockpuppet master based on past ironclad ability to miscomprehend anything that contradicts his/her denial.
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RedBaron at 21:56 PM on 18 September 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
Andy,
I suppose I have delayed posting simply due to the subject cutting a bit too close for comfort. I just lost my Dad this year after a decades long struggle with congestive heart failure. But I wanted to show my appreciation for all you have done in the fight to educate and mitigate AGW.
Indeed we don't agree often. I don't see us needing to sacrifice to mitigate AGW. The opposite in fact. We are spending billions making sure it does happen...foolishly. Your comments on Geoengineering seem crazy to me. Completely ignoring that 1 we are geoengineering now, and 2 the LCP works because the fossil carbon has to oxygen attached, not in spite of it. Though we disagree on a few thing I still count you as an important ally though, especially your vids.
Keep up the good work.
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John McKeon at 21:03 PM on 18 September 2017Exit, Pursued by a Crab
My post is too late to speak to Andy, but I want to say anyway how much I appreciated watching and listening to him on video talking about climate change along with its social context & problems. My best wishes to those closest to him.
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Rovinpiper at 20:34 PM on 18 September 2017IPCC admits global warming has paused
I strongly recommend you have a read of the paper.
Thanks. I'll do that.
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MartianSky at 17:02 PM on 18 September 2017Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
John Cook
Are you certain it is the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC)relation that governs the amount of water vapor brought into the atmosphere by evaporation? Remember that this relation predicts equilibrium (or saturation) values of the water vapor concentrations, which may or may not be the actual concentrations. If the CC equation is used for obtaining H2O vapor concentration as you explain, we would be assuming 100 percent relative humidity everywhere, which I believe leads to a great over-estimation of the water vapor positive feedback you describe.
Moderator Response:[DB] A general note to readership: this user is yet another fake-account sock puppet created by serial spammer cosmoswarrior (who's real identity I shall refrain from publishing). Posting rights rescinded as per the Comments Policy; this interchange shall remain for transparency and edification purposes.
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Ari Jokimäki at 15:51 PM on 18 September 2017New research, August 21-27, 2017
Thank you all. :-)
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scaddenp at 09:01 AM on 18 September 2017Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain
The final nail in myth? A study of long term satellite observations shows that increase in absortion of shortwave due to arctic seaice loss is not being compensated by the Antarctic.
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scaddenp at 07:05 AM on 18 September 2017IPCC admits global warming has paused
Further to that, note that I said OHC was calculated as temperature change integrated over depth. ie it is always with respect to a baseline. The methodological paper describing OHC say this right at the start: "We use the term “ ocean heat content” as opposed to “ocean heat content anomaly” used by some authors because “ocean heat content” is an anomaly by definition. OHC is always computed with a reference mean subtracted out from each temperature observation. Otherwise the OHC computation depends on the temperature scale used."
Thus you obviously get "negative" OHC when temperature is less than baseline. I strongly recommend you have a read of the paper. This was calculation done in 2012, but you can follow results from same methodology published here.
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supak at 04:04 AM on 18 September 2017New research, September 4-10, 2017
Thanks, barry!
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:53 AM on 18 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
nigelj@8,
My summary take-away from the article is that the timing and rapid rate of CO2 addition currently occurring is not helpful.
The increase of CO2 from 240 ppm to 280 ppm that occured before the 1800's is indicated to be sufficient to delay glaciation for 50,000 years.
What is currently being done is Too Much, Too Rapidly, Too Early to be beneficial.
So, the maximum amount of Fossil Fuels needs to be kept in the ground to give future generations the best opportunity to sustain advancements/development.
Perceived advancements that cannot be sustained are delusions. And some of those popular delusions about 'advancement of properity' are understandably very damaging yet remain popular and profitable, continuing to be encouraged or 'permitted' to be gotten away with.
I consider the desires to abuse the 'increased understanding of how to Win through misleading marketing' to be the greatest threat to the future of humanity that humans have ever developed.
SkS is well focused on the real problem as it relates to climate science - diminishing the ability of people to Win by abusing the science of marketing.
Every group pushing for one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals needs to have the same focus on misleading marketers. And all of those different groups need to support each other so that their collective 'pursuit of increased global awareness and better understanding to sustainably advance all of humanity' can Win over 'the United Groups trying to Win the Right to benefit from the understandably harmful things they want to prolong their ability get away with through the abuse of Poor Excuses to Temporarily Regionally Tempt people to support things that do not deserve to be Popular or Profitable'.
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Eclectic at 22:10 PM on 17 September 2017IPCC admits global warming has paused
Rovinpiper @15 , the IPCC chart you mention has the basic purpose of showing the alteration in accumulated energy — so you must expect a "negative" level as you go back in time. If you were thinking of the tiny "negative dips" around 1980 and 2000 etc, then you will have noticed that they are insignificant compared with the uncertainty bounds of the measurements.
Possibly a real "negative dip" could occur for a year or two if there were some very major volcanic eruption that shot enough fine [reflective] particles into the upper atmosphere. But that would be brief, and global warming would soon resume. When you think it through, you will see that the warming greenhouse effect of [primarily] CO2 is causing a heat inflow into the planet [an inflow averaging approximately 2 watts per squ.meter or in other words roughly 7,000 horsepower per squ. mile] and this is going on 24/7 and year round . . . and will continue until Earth reaches a new higher equilibrium temperature (many years after we have achieved zero net CO2 emissions in [hopefully] year 2050 or 2060 — or maybe 2080, the way our politicians are dawdling over the emissions problem! ].
And you will recognise that a genuine pause is impossible, under the present conditions of ongoing CO2 emission. That's why any "pause" can only be a Myth !
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Rovinpiper at 21:01 PM on 17 September 2017IPCC admits global warming has paused
Okay, so that means that temperature is measured and the energy is calculated from the temperature, mass, and specific heat of the media in question, right?
It's strange to me that the energy accumulation is below zero at c. 1971. Negative energy isn't possible, is it? Am I right to conclude that it has to be an artifact of the comparatively huge uncertainties in the measurements at that time?
The energy content of ice is not something that I'd ever thought about before, but it makes sense. Earth can get much colder than 273 K, so much of the ice has considerable warming up to do before it melts. -
nigelj at 17:51 PM on 17 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
This video is well worth a look regarding future of electric cars, disruptive technologies, and solar power:
It also covers self drive cars and future of personal transport generally. By pulling it all together with in depth historical evidence and studies of falling prices as well as projections, it really is an eye opener, and shows how much just the economics alone is driving this thing, as well as reducing emissions.
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Tom Curtis at 13:13 PM on 17 September 2017Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
RSaar @128, first I need to correct myself slightly. What I should have written is that:
"If the gas is at the same temperature as the source of the IR radiation (and ignoring reduction of intensity of radiation due to the inverse square law), the combined energy radiated from the ghg in any given direction will equal the amount absorbed by the IR gas from the IR source."
In my original statement I had in mind only the outward radiation.
What this means is that if the temperature of the atmosphere was uniform, and the same as that at the surface, the outgoing IR radiation at the Top Of the Atmosphere (TOA) would be the same as the outgoing IR radiation at the surface. In fact, however, the temperature generally falls with altitude, and nearly always does in the thickest part of the atmosphere from which most outgoing radiation from the atmosphere originates (the troposphere). The consequence is that at those wavelengths where all, or nealy all of the upwelling IR from the surface is absorbed, the outgoing IR radiation from the atmosphere, which comes from a cooler source, is less than that from the surface. That is illustrated in the first graph from the OP (shown below):
Averaged across the entire Earth, the effect is that the upwelling IR radiation at the surface is significantly greater than the outgoing IR radiation at the TOA (consisting or upwelling IR radiation from the atmosphere, plus whatever IR radiation from the surface which was not absorbed by the atmosphere), and that difference is the greenhouse effect. The point of the OP is that this is directly a function of the temperature structure of the atmosphere. With equal temperatures there would be no greenhouse effect, and if the atmosphere were warmer than the surface, you would have a reverse greenhouse effect.
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scaddenp at 07:53 AM on 17 September 2017IPCC admits global warming has paused
Yes, the oceans are warming, and the energy accumulatation is calculated by integrating temperature change over depth.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:25 PM on 16 September 2017Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
RSaar:
This post over at Rabett Run gives a good explanation of the likelhood of CO2 losing energy by emission or collision. You will find it in agreement with what Tom Curtis said.
Air and earth are not at the same temperature - air temeprature generally decreases with height. If you look at surface net IR, it is overal a loss of energy from the surface, but the rate varies.
Outgoing IR is roughly estimated by the Stefan-Boltzman equation using surface temperature. (Surface is a very good, but not perfect emitter). It can 250, 300, 400 W/m^2 at a typical range of cold-to-warm temperatures.
Incoming IR from the atmosphere is not so easily estimated, as the atmosphere is a less efficient emitter and what arrives at the surface comes from a range of heights (and air temperatures). With low oevercast, it will be similar to outgoing IR - cluds are good emitters. In clear skies the incoming IR is substantially less than outgoing IR. A typcial range is for incoming IR to be anywhere from a few to 150 W/m^2 less than outgoing IR. This holds true over a wide range of surface temperatures.
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Swayseeker at 23:02 PM on 16 September 2017New research, September 4-10, 2017
Regarding aerosols and decreased cyclone activity research, as I have said before, one can cool Earth and especially the hurricane region by evaporation by using floating spray mist pumps operated by wave motion. Scientists once believed that evaporation could even warm Earth because of increased water vapour (a greenhouse gas), but when more evaporation was fed into climate models it showed that with increased low level clouds, from increased evaporation, the Earth cools with evaporation - see some of the sites that talk about this ( https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110914161729.htm for example). Mist spray over the ocean (which happens when the wind blows hard), from mist spray generators, would prevent solar energy from entering the ocean and would cool by evaporative fine mist cooling. With cooler ocean hurricanes will not form so easily.
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Rovinpiper at 21:34 PM on 16 September 2017IPCC admits global warming has paused
I don't understand the concept of the warming of the entire climate system. If the oceans, for instance, are accumulating energy is that reflected as an increase in their temperature?
The first figure shows energy accumulation. I think the units are Zettajoules. Is that right? How is energy accumulation measured? -
JohnSeers at 19:51 PM on 16 September 2017Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Hi Tom
Just to say that the link to MODTRAN above does not work:
http://forecast.uchicago.edu/Projects/modtran.doc.html
How about this one:
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link. Thanks for finding that.
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RSaar at 16:19 PM on 16 September 2017Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Thank you for the reply. Though not sure i can put this quote to context at all.
If the gas is at the same temperature as the source of the IR radiation (and ignoring reduction of intensity of radiation due to the inverse square law), the combined energy radiated from the ghg will equal the amount absorbed by the IR gas.
Air and earth being at same temp? Was this meant to say that against 3K cosmos, eventually all that absorbed from IR source (earth) gets emitted?
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barry1487 at 13:07 PM on 16 September 2017New research, September 4-10, 2017
Eg, from this 2010 paper:
The results support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report; reduction in global frequency but increase in more intense TCs.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL042518/full
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barry1487 at 13:04 PM on 16 September 2017New research, September 4-10, 2017
This is a fairly common conclusion. Frequency may diminish, intensity of the stronger storms may increase.
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nigelj at 11:14 AM on 16 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
OPOF @7
Good conservation strategy, but may not be required. Reseach suggests the 1.5 - 2 degrees of warming we pretty much have locked in already would stop or hugely reduce the next ice age as below.
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Tom Curtis at 10:50 AM on 16 September 2017Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
RSaar @126:
"What i am hoping to show is that in lower atmosphere, the IR excited CO2 is likely to collide (and possibly give away its vibrational energy?( with other air molecules before it emits photon. Is that statement correct?"
Yes. Without going into details (which I am too busy to look up at the moment), IR absorbed by CO2 is far more likely to be dissipated as heat energy into the atmosphere by collisions than be being reradiated, and this is true throughout the range of temperatures and pressures found in the troposphere.
However, it is important to realize is that, firstly, the average time to relaxation by reemission is just that, an average time. Sometimes it will occur much quicker, so that a small proportion is reradiated rather than dissipated through collisions.
Secondly, it is also important to realize that the distinct vibrational modes of CO2 associated with the absorption of IR radiation can also arise as a result of collisions. Indeed, within the range of tropospheric temperatures and pressures, they are more likely to arise from collision than from absorption of IR radiation. Most of the energy absorbed from collisions absorbed by CO2 in this manner will be dissipated by collisions, but some will reradiate. Indeed, the same proportion will dissipated as IR radiation as for energy absorbed by IR radiation. What is more, if the gas is at the same temperature as the source of the IR radiation (and ignoring reduction of intensity of radiation due to the inverse square law), the combined energy radiated from the ghg will equal the amount absorbed by the IR gas.
There is a specious denier argument that because of the dissipation of absorbed IR energy by collisions, the greenhouse effect cannot work, and ghg serve only to cool the atmosphere. It is much favoured by the Galileo Institute in Australia, among others. Their argument ignores the emission of thermal energy as IR radiation within the bulk of the atmosphere, but at the same time assumes its existence at the top of the troposphere to serve as a cooling effect. What is worse, if radiation actually worked as they (inconsistently) assume, the GHE would actually be stronger because no energy would escape from the lower or middle troposphere to space as radiation, with the net effect or further raising the effective altitude of radiation to space.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:06 AM on 16 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
Thinking about the upcoming glaciation event ... future generations of humanity would love to have easy to get buried ancient hydrocabons they could burn to take the edge off of that event, rather than have nearer term future generations stuggle with the rapid climate change challenges being imposed on them by the selfish unjustified rapid burning up of non-renewable material that could have such a helpful future use.
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RSaar at 06:11 AM on 16 September 2017Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere
Could somebody point me towards values of how long is the CO2 vibrational relaxation time, i have a note 10-16s range (i assume this is in 300K range, 1 atm pressure), but i have no idea from where i got this from or whether it is somewhat right.
At 15C, i calculate that there will be collisions (in N2 gas, but thats close enough) 2.8 x 109 s (using hyperphysics tool)
What i am hoping to show is that in lower atmosphere, the IR excited CO2 is likely to collide (and possibly give away its vibrational energy?( with other air molecules before it emits photon. Is that statement correct? -
william5331 at 05:38 AM on 16 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
One other slight niggle. Read Ruddiman's book, Plows, Plagues and Petroleum. The reversal most likely started to occur around 6-8000 years ago, now 200 years ago.
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william5331 at 05:35 AM on 16 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
One little niggle. If we are going to call the period between the Eemian warm period and our present warm period an ice age then we need another word for the approximately 3m year span we are in at present with it's glacials and interglacials. Why don't we just stick to glacial or perhaps glacial period and reserve Ice Age for the long spans of time in which there are numerous gacial and interglacial periods. I don't care what we decide but it doesn't help to educate the lay public having this confusion of terms.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:47 AM on 16 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
To be clearer, the presentation included the timeline between ice ages, but it would be helpful to have included the relative global average temperature change between Ice Age and non-ice age periods compared to the magnitude of warming impacts being created.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:24 AM on 16 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
Related to purrmonster's minor nit-pick I would add that the magnitude of the difference of annual solar energy received by the Earth between the circular and maximum ellipse orbits should have been briefly explained along with how long it takes to transition between the two limits of orbit behaviour and where we are right now.
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supak at 04:14 AM on 16 September 2017New research, September 4-10, 2017
Hate to be a bother, but could someone let me know about this paper:
Response of Tropical Cyclone Activity and Structure to Global Warming in a High-Resolution Global Nonhydrostatic Model
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0068.1
Yohei Yamada et al
I don't have access past the abstract, but it seems to be predicting fewer tropical cyclones as a result of warming?
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purrmonster at 03:53 AM on 16 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
I also think this was a very good video; only one quibble. For eliptical orbits around the sun, the sun would be at one focus of the elipse, not the center.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:34 AM on 16 September 201730 Climate Lessons I Learned in 30 Years
Wol@6,
The Highest Impacting portion of the population is the real problem.
The 1 billion highest impacting people being the only ones on the planet would be rapidly creating problems for the future 1 billion while rapidly reducing the resources available for those future generations (a fundamantally unsustainable situation).
Red Baron correctly points out that increasing the carrying capacity is helpful. But reducing the impacts of human activity is also a way to increase the carrying capacity of the planet's environment. In fact, reduced burning of fossil fuels combined with farming changes could 'reverse a portion of the already created climate impacts' which would be a real Win-Win for future generations.
So I agree that it is frustrating that the elimination of the impacts of the highest impacting portion of the population is not being discussed (instead there are attempts to claim that simplistically thinking about reducing the population will lead to a solution).
Since the highest impacting portion of the population, the ones getting away with creating the most trouble, are also very wealthy and fortunate because of the competitive advantage they get away with, my personal preference is for that portion to change their minds rather than 'be neutralized/eliminated', with all of the wealthier and more fortunate being required to neutralize/eliminate the aspects of their ways of living that contribute to the climate problem.
And it is essential that 'all of those wealthier and more fortunate people' actually neutralize/eliminate the climate impacts of their ways of living in meaningful real time (no playing pretend that the hoped for total lifetime CO2 reduction of planting a tree today somehow immediately and certainly offsets impacts they immediately create, and especially no absurdities like claiming that keeping a portion of rain forest from being cut down grants them permission to create impacts - reestablishing already cut down rain forest is an offset, but only the benefit such an act actually produces in the year should count as a credit in that year).
The push by a portion of the higher impacting people for 'everyone to be freer to believe whatever they want and do whatever they please' can be very popular. And demands that people should only have to behave more responsibly if they choose/want to is not helpful (only the less fortunate have the excuse to behave less acceptably - and even their excuses are limited). Pushing for people to freer to think and do as they please without wise considerate responsbile self-restraint is clearly not a push for Liberty (Liberty includes the requirement for everyone to act with Wisdom and Self-restraint). It is a push for Anarchy, Chaos and Barbarism (and misguided Loyalty, Nationalism or Tribalism). It is a push against Civil Society, a push against advancing humanity, against improving/maintaining human civilization (with likes of Team Trump-Bannon-Sessions and ISIS being a couple of the many current day proofs of the damaging consequences of Temporary Regional Winning by people pushing for that type of Dogma to be believed contrary to what can be better understood).
That is the understanding regarding 'population problems' that I have learned through the past decades. And it isn't just due to the behaviours exposed by the climate change issue. There are many other examples of undeserving Winners who push to get away with things that are understandably contrary to the Sustainable Development of Humanity which is currently best presented by the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (which include action on climate change).
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shoyemore at 18:00 PM on 15 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #36
... an important question is whether the devastation caused by hurricanes Harveyand Irma will convince Donald Trump and his administration of the reality of climate change.
That is really naive. The expectation should be that Trump will double down on denial, because that is what deniers do. That is what he did after the G7 meetings where other world leaders made a concerted effort to persuade him out of denial.
As far as I can see, doubling down is exactly what deniers have been doing. And the Trump Administration has cocooned itself in a bubble where it is cut off from any scientific advice contrary to its ideological convictions, or fantasies if you prefer.
The only change will come when the electorate decides to rid itself of Trump and all his works.
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scaddenp at 10:03 AM on 15 September 2017Video: The Path Post-Paris
Tom13 seems very keen on cherry picks. "Interesting" way to evaluate data. That said, last few years have been tough for wind with plenty of hydro capacity and even more geothermal online since 2013. Dry conditions this year should improve things. However, increasing population and the switch to electric cars make it a pretty safe financial bet for the future.
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nigelj at 07:46 AM on 15 September 2017Trump promised to hire the best people. He keeps hiring the worst. Nasa is next
One Planet Only @9, yes part of the reason for Thatcher and Reagon at least having some environmental sense was public demand, and the visible problems of environmental issues. Their economic policy mischief was easier to conceal behind emotive claims, and the complexity and subtle nature of various policies hard for the public to untangle, and hidden mechanisms buried in legislation that promote a certain agenda!
But Thatcher was also in favour of environmental regulation due to her chemistry background and general belief in global warming, although she has some ulterior motives like promoting nuclear energy.
But sadly more recent neoliberal leaning or so called Washington consensus governments have often turned against environmental regulations. The Republican Party certainly has although their position is more one of conservatism, rather than neoliberalism. These things intersect, but are not one and the same.
The interesting thing from my point of view is the economics profession promote free markets, but with some exceptions. They accept regulation of markets is required on environmental matters. This is the proper position, that balances both, but politicians have warped views of economic theory and go in other directions as it suits.
I agree Americas environmental legislation has been patchy and self protectionist, but top marks to Reagon and Nixon for at least trying and recognising that not all government laws are bad things. Its really Bush and Trump that have taken things right backwards towards a weakening of standards, and towards protectionism / insularity. As you say Clinton was half hearted about the whole thing, and lacked an understanding that economic growth and free markets did not mean you should weaken environmental standards.
Unfortunately any time people point out inconvenient truths, or the value of some aspect of globalisation and international agreement and standards, people pull out the boogie man of one world government, or communism, or invasions of immigrants, or some other scare tactic based on emotion. Brexit was indeed a good example of this. It makes it hard to have an intelligent discussion and work out sensible policy.
However as you say global agreements can also be captured and made by the wrong people with narrow interests. Its all so complex.
It's difficult also because I for one am a believer in national sovereignty to some extent. I believe sovereignty and international agreements and globalisation, and its a balancing act between the two.
Agree about international standards manipulated in those ways. You do sometimes get international agreements with laws set at the lowest common denominator, not just in engineering but labour laws, envionmental laws. Free trade agreements sometimes do this. It's very hard having international standards that work for everyone, but I think international standards are an inevitability. Its always possible to help the losers from processes of adopting unified global standards, for example removing tariffs is dislocating for come people, but society and government can help the people hurt.
Unfortunately the media get captured by noisy and often extreme lobby groups, especially on the right of politics you get a lot of scaremongering these days, inflammatory claims etc. However this often doesn't even represent the true picture even within the commercial sector, for example witness how many companies are not impressed with Trumps inflammatory rhetoric and various policies.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:12 AM on 15 September 2017Video: The Path Post-Paris
Tom13,
Extracting and burning up non-renewable buried ancient hydrocarbons will undeniably become 'less possible'. As the easier to obtain resource is burned up future attempts to continue the activity become less viable.
Even today it is not possibe for everyone to 'advance to the level of burning benefited from by the more fortunate portion of humanity'. And massive vicious wars are waged between powers trying to be the 'biggest winners of that understandably unsustainable and damaging activity'
In addition to the reality the unsustainability of already very fortunate people trying to benefit more from burning fossil fuels, there is the undeiable matter of the impacts created. These impacts are suffered by people who do not recieve significant benefits (populations that suffer current day climate change impacts and the future generations).
Before talking about the comparable costs of different sources of energy, it is necessary to first ensure that the more damaging and ultimately unsustainable options are eliminated from the set of "Acceptable Alternatives". The marketplace does not 'naturally' do that. That is why responsible regulation is required, external constraints imposed by Leaders in business and government who are "... moved by rational consideration of distant motives" (as major writer regarding the pursuit of Liberty, John Stuart Mill, would say).
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nigelj at 06:56 AM on 15 September 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Natural Cycles
Very good video, but it missed cosmic rays which sceptics claim are a factor in global warming. But the trend in these over recent decades should have been causing a cooling, according to a SkS article:
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nigelj at 06:27 AM on 15 September 2017Video: The Path Post-Paris
Tom13@11, correction to my comment above, NZ Wind Farms has had several years of losses and is well known as a troubled company. You have picked the worst example. You cannot make an argument on one example.
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nigelj at 06:19 AM on 15 September 2017Video: The Path Post-Paris
Tom13@11
"Are wind farms in NZ really making money?I pulled up the the audited financial statements for NZ windfarms limitedInception to date loss of $46m as of june 2017."
Its absurd to quote one wind farm making a loss for one year as if this means anything, or that the sector is unprofitable. NZ Wind Farms are only one wind farm at Te Rere, and far from the largest. NZ has approx. 20 wind farms with various owners.
The following research from Deloitte finds wind power is economic in NZ.
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RedBaron at 03:50 AM on 15 September 2017New research, August 28 - September 3, 2017
Agreed William. Demo farms is the ticket.
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Lionel A at 03:06 AM on 15 September 2017New research, August 28 - September 3, 2017
#5. Is Nitrogen the Next Carbon?
One of the consequences of human added nitrate in soils is that nitrogen fixing plants cannot thrive in this enriched environment. This is especially true of leguminous plants. With a long time interest in photographing bees, especially bumble bees, I have noted a decided decline in the numbers of these animals in my local environment, Southern Hampshire, England this century. Bees of all species prefer leguminous plants e.g. clover for the pollen from these is richer in protein, much richer than many plants chosen for flower beds and borders.
Scientist and author Dave Goulson has explored this intensively by purchasing a run down farm in France and stripping off the over fertilised soil and then working several crops over years to further deplete the nitrates restoring clover and other similar species. This, and much more is described in his book 'A Sting in the Tail' of which more can be found here:
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:53 AM on 15 September 2017Trump promised to hire the best people. He keeps hiring the worst. Nasa is next
nigelj,
Thank you for the perspective on the popularity of Reagan and Thatcher.
I believe they took any environmental protection action due to public awareness demanding it. They pushed their economic agenda/dogma in spite of popular dislike of it, but reduced pollution that the public could undeniably see as personally damaging.
An example of how they limited their pollution prevention actions was the limited reduction of sulphur in diesel by the USA compared to what was done in Europe. And that reduction of sulphur was a late 1970s action to address the concerns identified in the 1972 Stockholm Conference.
The less aggressive US limits on sulphur in diesel are consistent with other 'protectionist' actions by the USA such as the reluctance to convert to metric. The actions make it difficult for non-USA items to compete with Made in America stuff, to the unsustainable benefit of existing USA industry. European diesel vehicles could not run well on the crappy US diesel (and before that the French put their steering wheels on the other side of vehicles than the British - and so did the USA, and the USA made-up a different spacing between train rails).
Examples of how they played popularity games to not have to behave better environmentally were the way they failed to properly raise awareness of the changes required to properly/responsibly address climate change impacts. The end of coal burning in the USA would have been (is) a significant loss of international competitive advantage. So the USA federal leadership did little to reduce the impacts. Responsible state and business leaders in the USA can been clearly seen to be the main reason there was less damaging Carbon impact related development in the USA.
I still remember seeing the speech by GW Bush when he announced that the USA would not ratify Kyoto. He proudly stated that the US citizens did not need to change how they lived. And before that, Clinton had not pushed to have Kyoto ratified, mainly because popular support had been drummed up against doing so and Clinton's go to reference phrase was the now understandably short-sighted "Its the Economy Stupid" (he had that reminder on a plaque on his White House desk rather than something like "Its About the Improvement of the Future for All of Humanity - Duh").
The bottom line is that the international understanding of the changes required to sustainably improve the future of humanity impose limits on what "Nations" can get away with doing. That was made clear in the 1972 Stcockholm Conference and getting clearer with improved awareness and understanding.
Undeniably that growing demand for responsible limits of what a "Nation" can get away with threatens the desires of the unsustainable and damaging schools of Dogmatic Beliefs behind what the Reagan/Thatcher leadership were promoting. Part of what they fight against is the generally understood expectation that Liberty is only deserved by people acting based on "... Wisdom and Voluntary Restraint" (an important part of the definition of Liberty in my 1988 Canadian Edition of "Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary", with Libertarians being defined as wanting Liberty).
The boogie-man propaganda claims made against what is referred to as a One World Government (anti-Paris Agreement people often use this term) are part of the fight against having to be wise, fair, considerate and responsibly self-restraining.
The Brexit promoters included irrational propaganda arguments againsts having to comply with EU developed Standards because they are 'requirements of Others'. However, I am also a little leary of global standards when pursuers of maximum personal benefit have any say in what gets established.
In my work experience as a Structural Engineer I saw many examples of an International Standard (ISO) being stated to be a low standard with different nations allowed to establish higher standards if the they wished. That results in a competitive disadvantage for 'higher/better standards' and pressure within those nations to 'reduce their standards in order to be more competitive' or legal challenges claiming that requiring a higher standard is an unfair restriction on imported products or services (especially abuse/use of legal opportunities added to "Trade Agreements", especially when the legal mechanisms get put in to Trade Agreements by pursuers of maximum personal benefit).
Games of limiting the requirements to responsibly self-limit can easily be seen to be played in the current day 'negotiations' regarding action to globally responsibly limit climate change impacts. And the regional temporary popularity able to be drumed up in support of those damaging efforts is also 'understandable, and undeniably unacceptable'.
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Tom13 at 02:26 AM on 15 September 2017Video: The Path Post-Paris
www.nzx.com/companies/NWF/announcements/306186
See the linke to the audited financial statements for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016
Scaddeenp -
Are wind farms in NZ really making money?
I pulled up the the audited financial statements for NZ windfarms limited
Inception to date loss of $46m as of june 2017.
Employee costs running at 40% of gross revenue, (not what would be considered efficient use of human resources)
Depreciable lives of 25-40 years when the real economic life is closer to 15-18 years, recorded impairment of almost half the cost.
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sailingfree at 01:57 AM on 15 September 2017IPCC global warming projections were wrong
Nice work! It would even more convincing if the record temperatures of 2014, 2015, and 2016 were plotted.
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