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One Planet Only Forever at 09:45 AM on 22 June 2023At a glance - Is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth correct?
I am reading Greta Thunberg's compilation of contributions by many experts - "The Climate Book" . Hopefully it will effectively increase awareness, and more effectively than 'An Inconvenient Truth'.
Unlike 'An Inconvenient Truth' being attacked by claims that Al Gore made it up, 'The Climate Book' cannot be claimed to be 'Just Greta's opinion'. It is a comprehensive presentation of the history and current understanding of the diversity of implications of human induced climate change. Each chapter is independently written and compelling. But I am particularly impressed by how holistically the issue is covered in the following chapters:
- 1.5 'The science is as solid as it gets' by Greta Thunberg
- 1.6 'The Discovery of Climate Change' by Michael Oppenheimer
- 1.7 'Why Didn't They Act?' by Naomi Oreskes
Go Greta 'the High School Climate Protest Graduate'.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:28 AM on 21 June 2023At a glance - Is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth correct?
BaerbelW,
Thank you for exposing a minor improvement to my comment.
I should have stated "Without that significant increased awareness, especially in the Nation with the greatest ability to be helpful or harmful, the situation today ..."
As a Civil/Structural engineer with an MBA (in Canada) my personal interest has always been constantly learning to develop sustainable improvements with actions including:
- limiting the harm done by new developments
- correcting dangerous existing developments (reducing the risk of damaging results)
- stopping the use of dangerous and damaging systems until they are corrected (that action can be applied to structures, but not to the developed systems of human activity impacting a planet - changes of the human developed systems and norms is what is required).
The impacts of pollution from fossil fuel activity (extraction through end-use) had been effective arguments against continued fossil fuel use. And they continue to be arguments against continued fossil fuel use even though some reduction of harm has happened due to government intervention in the Marketplace of thoughts and actions.
An Inconvenient Truth expanded my ability to 'try to correct misunderstandings being presented by people who did not want to reduce their ability to benefit from harmful fossil fuel use'. And Skeptical Science, improved by your engagement, has been even more helpful.
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BaerbelW at 05:45 AM on 21 June 2023At a glance - Is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth correct?
One Planet @1
Indeed! I'm not sure, I'd be here hadn't I watched AIT when it came out in Germany in 2007 as described in this blog post:
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:28 AM on 21 June 2023At a glance - Is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth correct?
A more important question regarding "An Inconvenient Truth" is: Did it increase awareness and understanding regarding the damage to the future of humanity being caused by human climate change impacts (primarily the use of fossil fuels)?
The undeniable answer is YES.
Without that significant increased awareness in the Nation with the greatest ability to be helpful or harmful the situation today would likely be far worse because of less being done to reduce the harm being done.
The people fighting to benefit more from understandably damaging unsustainable activity are still very influential (being more harmful is more profitable and popular if it can be gotten away with, especially if there is a lack of awareness). But they have been steadily 'winning less' of their endless attempts to get away with being freer to believe and do whatever they please.
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:22 PM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
That comment is very definitely going to get deleted by the mods, Peppers, because you couldn't follow a very simple instruction to post it in the appropriate thread.
Moderator Response:[BL] The comment you are referring to, plus another that followed, have indeed been deleted as off-topic.
Continued behaviour such as this by Peppers will likely result in his posting privileges being rescinded.
On second thought, no point in waiting. Peppers will no longer be participating here.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:26 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers, here is a link to the appropriate thread for the breathing CO2 topic. But before you respond, please take the time to read the article and consider the science presented.
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peppers at 05:01 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Philippe, your ad hominem aside, I went to your thread shown and it is far from decided. The cycle discussed is not calibrated for a 5 times increase of people breathing. There is a rush to return to fossil fuel as the cause on that thread.
I wouldnt be surprised if fossil fuel were paramount. More people also mean more fossil fuel use. But submission participants who were really interested wanted to know and caculate how much Co2 is emited per person, etc. No one answers that there.
Ill see what I can dig up. Whether it is from breathing or from more fossil fuel use and if it is because we now have more people, this starts a lot of prioritizing junctures over again. I think. Thx D
Moderator Response:[BL] Take this to the correct thread. Any further off-topic posts will be deleted entirely.
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:49 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
I actually take Peppers at his word thinking he actually believes these are pertinent questions to ask. I think he's likely operating at a very low level of understanding on climate science issues, thus everything seems pertinent. The problem is he's not understanding that he's asking very low level questions for which there are simple answers.
It's rather like when climate deniers say the warming is caused by the sun on the ridiculous assumption that climate scientists have never bothered to check.
All very "Cranky Uncle" stuff.
I guess it's far easier to believe there's a conspiracy rather than reading the published research to learn there's not.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:05 AM on 19 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
OK, Charlie Brown. I agree that I overstated it when I said that "a lot of IR loss to space comes from the stratosphere". But the important point is that what is seen at any height, looking up or down, is not from a single level above or below the observation height. I think we agree on that.
The IR emitted in the stratosphere will easily be lost to space, due to the small number of molecules at that height, as you mention. We've discussed on other threads how the view of upward-directed IR at high altitude has its origins at different levels, in a kind of inverse view of Beer's Law. Beer's Law tells us the probability that a photon will be transmitted through X path lengths, and the flip side is that it tells us the probability that a photon seen at altitude Z came from a source X path lengths away. A high probability that it came from somewhere close; a low probability that it came from somewhere far away. Exact values of "close" and "far" are dependent on the absorption coefficient for that particular wavelength.
When we "see" an individual photon, we have no idea how far it has travelled, as all photons of that wavelength look the same and carry no memory of the temperature they were emitted at. With a large number of photons, we can start to talk of the probability distribution that it came from altitude Z. It could have been emitted by a layer just below, or well below, or just emitted locally.
In a model, you will have access to internal calculations that tell you how much of the upward flux was transmitted from lower layers, versus how much was emitted within the layer. Field measurements will just give you the sum of the two, though. (In part, it's because field measurements don't have "layers" in the way a model does.)
The MODTRAN page you link to has a button "Show raw model output". That has a lot of detail. I don't know if there is a way to parse that to get the split between "transmitted" "emitted" in the flux. It is a very useful site, none-the-less.
All of which is to say that the words Vidar2032 posted in #383 have serious shortcomings. I don't know if we will see Vidar return with any clarification on his/her thoughts.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:50 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers' comment @ 22 above should be on this thread:
This old dead horse has been flogged ad nauseam already and has no value. It casts serious doubt on the sincerity of anyone willing to stoop so low as to use it. It is even worse when it is accompanied by thinly veiled accusations of "suppressing" dissenting voices, accusations for which there is not a shred of credible evidence, especially in the post making the accusation. Anybody who can think quantitatively will quickly see the vacuity of the "human breathing causes CO2 rise" argument. The "just asking questions" trolling method has been seen around here innumerable times, it is no more amusing now than it was years ago.
Moderator Response:[BL] Note that although the displayed text for the "breathing" page is garbled, the actual link behind the text points to the correct page.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:45 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers, the problem is when you say something like, "I find some questions intriguing. We must ask more questions."
Asking questions is perfectly reasonable. It's great to ask questions. But you also must put that in context of your level of understanding of the subject. The way you're stating this implies that you're asking something that isn't fully understood by researchers.
You seem to be posing questions for which there are simple answers you're currently unaware of. But you're not taking the time to research if there is a simple answer and rather prefer the idea that you're somehow presenting some new concept researchers haven't considered.
Again, I will state here, in order to ask pertinent questions worthy of substantive discussion you must first spend some considerable time researching the topic before hand.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:19 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
CO2 is up and still increasing primarily because we continue to rely on fossil fuel sources of energy.
Human respiration is part of the active carbon cycle regardless of the numbers of humans on the planet.
The increase in atomospheric concentration of CO2 is a function of humanity reintroducing sequestered carbon back into the active carbon cycle through buring of FF's.
Human respiration is not an "equalizing factor" because human respiration does nothing to sequester carbon.
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peppers at 03:09 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Hi Rob, OK thanks for trying to understand. The world has completely changed and Co2 is just a one part of these changes. But this is proving hard to relate, especially in this settled and denier climate.
But Co2 is up, and increasing. Still, there are a lot of questions that have answers that are being suppressed.
Hey, allow me a tickler for you. This is not any main point of mine at all, but I would love to hear a rebuttal.
I understand the premise that human respiration on earth is an equalized basis; that an equal amount of Co2 is expired based on the photosynthesis that happened to create the Co2, as a cycle. What about if one quotient were increased by a factor of 5 times, such as human population inceasing from 1.6B in 1900 to 8B today? Foliage has increased according to Nasa, by not 5 times worth. With 5 times the 'engines' of people respirating Co2 being in play, but without the photosynthesis being up to speed at the same rate, wouldnt the atmosphere be 'banking' Co2 until the other parts of this cycle, used to explain the human equalizing factor, be a possible explaination to increased Co2 in our world? I find some questions intriguing. We must ask more questions.
Moderator Response:[BL] Accusations of dishonesty on the part of scientists snipped.
This is getting increasingly off topic, and increasingly tiresome.
Philippe (below) has pointed you to a proper thread for the breathing/CO2 discussion. Here it is again:
https://skepticalscience.com/breathing-co2-carbon-dioxide.htm
Before you go and pollute that thread, ask yourself:
- How much carbon is stored in 1B people?
- How much carbon is stored in 8B people?
- If people breathing out have been adding net carbon to the atmosphere, how does that jive with your estimates of the change in storage between 1) and 2)?
...and when you sit down to have your next meal (or ten), look at what you are eating, and ask yourself where the carbon in that meal came from, and how long it was in that form between the time it came out of the atmosphere and went into you.
You need to spend some time looking at the cycle of [anything], and thinking over the difference between quantities in storage and quantities moving between different forms of storage. You seem to be extremely confused between high storage and high rate of transfer. You should also look at this post on residence time, and this post on residence time.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:31 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
a) Has modern medicine reduced infant mortality rates in the past 150 years? Of course.
b) Is that a clear proxy for "human suffering." No. You can have low infant mortality and great human suffering.
c) Is CO2 a necessary byproduct of human advancements? No. Access to energy likely is and thusfar that access to energy has been supplied by fossil fuel sources. But today renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner and will replace those FF sources over the coming decades.
d) Will the human population return to 1B? It likely could and probably should, as that is probably what this planet can reasonably sustain over the future millennia.
There are estimations I've seen suggesting the natural decline in the human population into the 22nd century could be rapid as more of world's people attain first world status. We already see this effect occurring in many first world nations. It's most obvious in Japan due to it's strict immigration laws. The US would have a falling population if not for immigration. China's population is now starting to fall as well.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:18 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers... All that and it's still not very clear to me what exactly you're trying to assert and it's confounded, once again, by a myriad of technical errors in what you're stating.
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peppers at 01:31 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Eclectic,
You are more than welcome to call me out on misuse of premises or data. But I think you slipped in to some all or nothing thinking to cancel out my logic. I dont think Einstein updating Newton's laws of gravity, from all objects exterting an attracting force to thier interplay with space and time and warping the fabric of space itself, invalidates Newton's advance on the subject to him point in time. Bur more is always coming in science. One can never say something is settled. Einstein is now (and he knew it) unable to explain the deepest space questions within black holes, where his formulas now fail. My only point is to ask you to question anytime someone says an area of science is settled, and the derogations of any still continuing to ask questions, to be deniers. Thx D
Moderator Response:[BL] If you think that nothing in science is ever deserving of the title "settled", do you spend a lot of time questioning the existence of gravity when someone warns you "be careful up there, you might fall"?
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peppers at 00:56 AM on 19 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Hi gentlemen. Rob, I start my logic from our worlds increase from 1 to 8 billion people. I dont know of anywhere this is made up or in dispute. I then premise that this describes mankinds addtional use of resources, including increased use that has elevated Co2. I will pause there until we are agreeing these premises are in agreement, but I will hint that this is a remarkable change in approaching this topic. If we do not agree that our population has rocketed up from 1 to 8 billion ( 8 billion reached November 22, 2022 ) in 200 years, after never going over 1 billion in the prior 180,000 years of human history, then we cannot really go to the next step of my ideas (thx).Eclectic, hi. I understand infant mortality to be the measurement of human suffering over the large picture. That is how it is posed. I know it sounds off base and we should discuss cancer or heart disease, etc. But infant mortality has been the real beast to our existence. 50% in roman times, peaking to 62% I think in south american in 800AD. It has been at 50% in many place on earth into the mid 1800's. Today it is under 1% in the US, and about 4.35% globally with the third world locations providing the offsets of up to 8.5%. I posted a chart earlier on this thread.
Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, the eradication of infant mortality, the leap of our lifespans and the shear amount of people who now live to be an adult produces a chart that is an exact mirror to the hockey stick chart used to show our rise in Co2.
I hesitate to go further, but I will hazard it. If you see what I am referring to, much like the rise of people on earth to 8 billion; there is no going back. The world is different. The world is already different and there is no going back and the United Nations estimates we will continue to increase to just about 9.5-10B around the end of this century and then it will taper off on increasing.
I have not explored expectations of any decline but if it is expected I would imagine it would involve several hundreds of years. And only find a moderating level of some kind and not return to 1B.
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BaerbelW at 19:20 PM on 18 June 2023Glaciers are growing
Please note: the basic version of this rebuttal has been updated on June 18, 2023 and now includes an "at a glance“ section at the top. To learn more about these updates and how you can help with evaluating their effectiveness, please check out the accompanying blog post @ https://sks.to/at-a-glance
Thanks - the Skeptical Science Team.
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Charlie_Brown at 03:13 AM on 18 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Bob @388
We agree more than you think. I did not intend to imply that only two atmospheric layers need to be considered for emittance. I was intending to illustrate the many strong and weak absorption lines in the layers that were most important for emittance from CO2 and H2O. A useful concept is to look down from the top of the atmosphere. Integrate absorptance/emittance for energy loss to space from the top and descend until a value of 1.0 is reached. MODTRAN Infrared Light in the Atmosphere (MILIA) model, which is a multilayer model, does the calculations.Maybe we disagree on descriptions for the magnitude of contribution to the upward heat flux from the tropopause and the stratosphere, because I conclude that the major emitting layer for CO2 is the tropopause (11-20 km in the 1976 U.S. Std atmosphere) and the stratosphere contributes only a small amount. This can be demonstrated by changing the altitude in MILIA from 20 km (217 K) to 50 km (271 K). At 20 km, the bottom of the spectrum in the CO2 band of 14-16 microns reaches 217 K, which matches the Planck distribution. Raising the altitude to 50 km brings the bottom of the band up a little bit to 222 K, but not to the higher temperature of the stratosphere. Also, and very interesting, is the appearance of a sharp peak at 14.9 microns that matches a Planck temperature of 240 K. This is caused by the contribution from a few very strong CO2 absorption lines.
We agree that Manabe’s work is awesome, but I don’t think that it necessarily supports a description “A lot of IR loss to space comes from the stratosphere.” It demonstrates a significant effect of CO2 on the temperature of the stratosphere. However, the stratosphere has so few molecules that small differences in the total IR energy flux can have large differences in temperature.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:11 AM on 18 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers... (sigh) Having a substantive discussion requires that you put forth something meaningful to discuss. What I'm trying to point out is, your assemblage of statements (@9 & 13) are functionally worthless because you're not putting forth rational concepts. Worse yet, you're just making up stuff on the fly with an erroneous assumption it's based in science when, in fact, you've completely mucked up.
Do some research before posting. Take some time to formulate something worthwhile to discuss and everyone here will be eager to engage.
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Eclectic at 22:22 PM on 17 June 2023CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
MARodger @36 ~ thanks for that. Sadly, my initial look into the Suess Effect merely turned up a lot of children's books.
Then, once I got onto the right path ~ it seemed that the 14C-radiocarbon story would be the only aspect of interest (for, as you say, there would not appear to be anything much concerning the 13C ratio which might raise any skeptical doubts in the mind of poster Log @34. )
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MA Rodger at 21:21 PM on 17 June 2023CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Eclectic @35,
The Suess Effect is entirely to do with the carbon cycle and the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere.
Log @34,
Proper isotopic carbon analysis is in accord with what you'd expect (eg see Andres et al (2000) or Keeling et al 2005) to the point that it is being used to analyse the response in the biosphereto rising CO2 (eg Keeling et al (2017) 'Atmospheric evidence for a global secular increase in carbon isotopic discrimination of land photosynthesis').
Of course, that doesn't stop denialists using crazy ways of combining the various numbers for airborne fraction and the drop in 13C to find results more to their own liking. I've seen a few of them through the years but can't find any recent ones.
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Eclectic at 11:37 AM on 17 June 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #23
John Hartz, thanks for linking to George Monbiot's excellent article. To quote some more :-
< Culture war entrepreneurs, often funded by billionaires and commercial enterprises, cast even the most innocent attempts to reduce our impacts [on AGW] as a conspiracy to curtail our freedoms. Everything becomes contested: low-traffic neighbourhoods, 15-minute cities, heat pumps, even induction hobs. You cannot propose even the mildest change without a hundred professionally outraged influencers leaping up to announce: "They're coming for your ..." It's becoming ever harder, by design, to discuss crucial issues such as SUVs, meat-eating and aviation calmly and rationally.
Climate science denial, which had almost vanished a few years ago, has now returned with a vengeance. Environmental scientists and campaigners ar bombarded with claims that they are stooges, shills, communists, murderers and paedophiles. >
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Eclectic at 10:10 AM on 17 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
@13 , thank you, Peppers, you raise some very general points ~ which might be allowably on-topic in this Cranky Uncle thread. (And please forgive my overly formal usage of a capital P in your moniker ~ since even our impersonal friend ChatGPT gets awarded an initial capital C . )
Rob H. is being too tactful to hint at the conjunction of Veritas with an excess of vinum.
Peppers, you are using false logic when you suggest that all newer scientific understandings (e.g. Einstein's relativity) are entirely replacing (and invalidating) the previous consensus position (e.g. Newton's views). Quite false, to assert that such "progress" does imply that Einstein is also wrong & will in turn be thrust into the dustbin.
Peppers, I also take issue with you on the infant mortality argument that you use. There are still parts of the world where infant & maternal mortality/morbidity are appallingly high. And even in parts of the USA, too. The solution to these problems is essentially non-scientific ~ it is political [includes attitudinal ]. The problem is: too many Cranky Uncles in this world, with their bad attitude/ their illogic/ their uncompassion & uncharitableness. [ is "uncompassion" a ChatGPT neologism? ]
# John Hartz's comment (today, in the News Roundup #23) quotes George Monbiot on climate science denial and the current rising level of antisocial fascist behaviour. That is a thread, Peppers, where you might well continue your Chatty musings !
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peppers at 09:59 AM on 17 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Well Rob, thats an unexpected snarky response, culminating in your cancellation. Perhaps this is really only to be an echo chamber for you. Maybe a yes or no answer can pass your criteria to be a discussion for you.
Have humans during their 180k years remained below and slowly approached 1B inhabitants through this entire time span, only to have skyrocketed 8 time this amount over the last 200 years?
After 4 such questions you will have my point, which is only going to use existing empirical evidence and no guessing or leaps of faith. There is no reason to struggle, the answer to the above is yes.
And Rob your answer may also be no if you just do not want to follow to my point. I am more than happy to use my time for this, but that does not mean you are more important somehow, in regards to cancelling me.
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John Hartz at 05:25 AM on 17 June 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #23
ubrew12:
George Monbiot's opinion piece, The hard right and climate catastrophe are intimately linked. This is how, published in yesterday's (June 16) edition of The Guardian lays out in stark terms how and why the human race's response to climate change has regressed since the release of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, in 2006.
In the essay, Monbiot states:
Climate science denial, which had almost vanished a few years ago, has now returned with a vengeance. Environmental scientists and campaigners are bombarded with claims that they are stooges, shills, communists, murderers and paedophiles.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:54 AM on 17 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
FYI... It's spelled "quorum." This is a fascinating error because the mispelling is essentially a demonstration of Pepper's underlying thought processes with his other... points(?). It's a kind of lazy ignorance. No effort to check the spelling or meaning. Just thrown out there in an attempt to stir the pot.
Like Eclectic, I had to read the mix of chaos theory/6 degrees of separation thing a couple of times to see if there was some intended reference. My only conclusion is, no. He just doesn't know what he's talking about and doesn't want to be bothered to genuinely understand.
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peppers at 01:01 AM on 17 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Hi gentlemen,
I see a quarum gathering!
I see science as not a conclusive process. History has proven it can only be a progressive form. Einstein overtook Newton, the solar system replaced the center theme, the flat earth, etc. We do not seem to end up too foolish until we stop and say, we know. Then it begins to prove we do not.
I am really working right off the label on the package. The searching of science never has an arrival.
For instance. in 1900 the world population was 1.6B. Now it is above 8B. This is the result of science. Global warming is the result of science discovering germs and influencing hygiene, housing and food supply within the industrial revolution. Infant mortality dropped from 50% to 30% by 1950. Today it is below 1% USA after antibiotics were discovered. An historic era for mankind! But do we celebrate this alleviant of human suffering and pain, or do we chastize it for bringing on global warming.
To me this is so important a question I am hesitant to continue without knowing quite a bit more. I would endure a lot of weather and sea rising in exchange for the boon science has brought.
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
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Philippe Chantreau at 00:48 AM on 17 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers' production @ 9 has numerous characteristics of what I would indentify as older AI generated language. Rich vocabulary without comprehension or meaning. Correct sentence structure conveying incoherent thoughts. Related concepts mashed together in nonsensical ways.
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Eclectic at 23:41 PM on 16 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers @9 ~ I raise my hand to "second" Philippe's point. Please help!
I must be a Cranky Uncle of low I.Q. , for I am failing to grasp the points which you are (or may be) making.
Why are you mentioning "concluding" and "science" as (possibly) excluding each other? And why undertake a scientific process, if not to reach a conclusion? Is confirmatory scientific investigation somehow invalid? (And please do not bring Sartre into your explanation!)
Chaos and the Butterfly Effect ~ how connected with Milgram's 6 degrees? If this is a Mixed Metaphor of some sort, then it is too subtle for me . . . so please explain !
[ Unlike the changes of weather, the changes of climate are not chaotic. Cloud cover & albedo changes are not chaotic, even though difficult to compute precisely. ]
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Philippe Chantreau at 23:10 PM on 16 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers at 9:
What in the world are you trying to say?
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peppers at 21:19 PM on 16 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
I have an ex wife who a year or so later, was 'fond' of me. I have an adversion to the word now!
How do we reconcile these 2 premises:
1. Characterizing another who does not conclude at this juncture, as; someone who is fond of misunderstanding climate science matters.
2. Oxford Dictionary; The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained (the definition of Science bearing no mention of conclusion, and also applies the inference that a conclusion would be an impediment to the process of science).
I dont think you mean to have a conflict with others still observing and testing theories.Milgram's Six Degrees of Separation famously said that a butterfly can flap its wings in Peking, and in Central Park, you get rain instead of sunshine. As opposed to being settled, you cannot operate a scientific understanding without first not knowing. If you are steering to a conclusion, thats not science nor even close.
To add a bit more meat to the above poetic insertion, I'd like to add 2 observations. On November 22nd 2022 the world hit 8 billion, having increased exactly at the pace and curve of the famous hockey stick graph from 1 billion in the same time span. For a discussion about the planets ability to handle such a change, the clouds and atmosphere contain all the energy and ability to moderate that. However it is impossible to model any of it.
I say we need to observe, experiment and add theories to our incomplete knowledge of our world and of the solar system. More warmth, more moisture, more clouds, more albedo, etc.
Theories do not require immediate citations or proofing, however that would be the next thing sought. For the sake of theory ( not a belief nor desiring antagonizing), if we stay to any natural progression of things, the increase of our species having caused changes, if the natural offset were more warmth, moisture, cloud cover and albedo to offset this, are we interferring with natures response just because we would not want a warmer world, more weather, higher coastlines, etc.?
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Eclectic at 14:06 PM on 16 June 2023CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Log @34 , my apology for not replying more promptly. I was hoping that someone more knowledgeable than me would respond to you.
My understanding is that the Suess Effect's major relevance is with radiocarbon dating, rather than with climate matters.
It would be helpful if you could clarify your question, by discussing it in more detail how you believe there are difficulties of comprehension of the planetary total carbon cycle. Perhaps you are seeking more precision than is required for verification of the mainstream scientific understanding of modern climate change.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:35 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Manabe's Nobel Prize was very well deserved, that's for sure.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:01 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
I also disagree with part of what Charlie Brown has said in comment 386. Although it is reasonable to say that the IR radiation emitted to space looks like it is being emitted from a single layer at temperature X, the losses to space are an integration of IR radiation emitted at many layers of differing temperatures.
A lot of IR loss to space comes from the stratosphere. In the Beer's Law thread I linked to, in comment #15, I give the modelling results from Manabe and Wetherald, 1967, which shows a cooling of the stratosphere with increased CO2. That is because adding CO2 also increases the ability to emit radiation, as well as to absorb it. In the stratosphere, that means that the temperature change is dominated by the fact that the same IR radiation can be emitted a a lower temperature. That would not make any sense if IR loss to space only came from a single height. Here is the figure I included in that oher comment:
IR radiation transfer in the atmosphere cannot really be dealt with as a single-layer item , except as a useful approximation to illustrate certain characteristics. It is a continuous system of many layers, with absorption/emission sequences that depend on all of the following: temperatures, atmospheric composition, and the wavelength of radiation (since greenhouse gasses absorb and emit at specific wavelengths).
It is correct that water vapour is concentrated in lower layers of the troposphere, where the temperatures are warmer - whereas CO2 is relatively uniformly mixed through the troposphere and stratosphere. But both exist in a continuum. The symbols in the figure I give above represent the different layers that were used in the Manabe and Wetherald model. Still a set of discrete altitudes (heck it was 1967, so the computer they used was far less complex that your current cell phone) - but a lot more layers than just "this one for water vapour, that one for CO2".
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Eclectic at 08:54 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Charlie_Brown @386 ,
No. Please remember the old adage about "not seeing the forest for the trees". ;-)
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Charlie_Brown at 07:47 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Actually, I think that Vidar2032 @383 is correct. When he/she says GHGs emit at a fixed temperature, I believe he/she means at the temperature of the atmosphere as fixed by the atmospheric temperature profile. The 1976 U.S. Std Atmosphere for the tropopause, where CO2 emits to space, is close to 220K, while the emitting layer of H2O vapor in the troposphere is about 240-270 K. When he/she says that the effect of increased concentration is to broaden the band, that also is correct when considering that increasing concentration strengthens weak absorption lines. Look at the Figure in Bob Loblaw @7 in his linked thread to Beer’s Law above, which Bob kindly produced for me at that time. The weak absorption lines on the wings get stronger as concentration increases. There is sufficient path length in the tropopause to bring most of the absorption lines for the CO2 band between 14-16 microns close to 1.0, which means that the emittance is close to 1.0. Stacking the strong absorption lines in the middle of the band, which means increasing the path length and bringing an emittance of close to 1.0 even closer to 1.0, is not how increasing CO2 increases the emittance. Note that increasing emittance means more energy is emitted from a colder temperature which has less intensity than the energy emitted from a lower altitude at a warmer temperature. This is in accordance with the Planck black body distribution curves that Bob presents. The difference between a black body and a gas is that a black body absorbs/emits at all wavelengths while gases absorb/emit only at wavelengths specific to their molecular structure. What would be interesting, if only I could post my own Figure, would be the HITRAN absorption lines for CO2 at conditions of the tropopause and H2O for the troposphere.
Meanwhile, Vidar’s question is an excellent opportunity to use the Univ of Chicago link to MODTRAN Infrared Light in the Atmosphere. Choose the 1976 U.S. Std Atmosphere. All one has to do is increase the water vapor scalar to 1.07 to show a 7% increase, then adjust the temperature offset until the original value is matched. It turns out to be about 0.25 C. Better, to see if 7 % is about right, set CO2 to 280, CH4 to 0.7, and Freon to 0 to get pre-industrial conditions. Save the run to background. Then change CO2 to 415, CH4 to 1.8, and Freon to 1.0 to get current conditions, adjust the temperature offset to match the starting value, and choose holding fixed relative humidity. The raw model output shows that it changes the water vapor by about 6%, and the temperature offset is about 1.0 C. It's a very good approximation, but be careful not to place too high of an expectation on the accuracy and precision of this model. Realize that it is designed to be an educational tool with high computational speed and limited flexibility that provides good results, but better models exist for professional use.
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Eclectic at 04:39 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Vidar2032 @ post#383 ,
No. What you propose about infrared emissions is bizarrely wrong.
To educate yourself, please go back to Physics 101. From what you have said, you have a great deal of reading to do, to get up to understanding the very basics about radiation and molecules. You have a lot of work ahead of you !
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Bob Loblaw at 04:38 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Vidar2032:
I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings of the emission and absorption of radiation.
First, gases do not emit radiation "at a fixed temperature". Temperature is not a characteristic of radiation. Temperature is a measure of thermal energy, and that thermal energy is available to be converted to radiation (i.e., emitted). Gases will emit radiation at selected individual wavelengths, related to the structure of the gas. But they will emit radiation at those wavelengths at any temperature.
The way that temperature links to emission is by the quantity of energy available. Higher temperature? More frequent emissions of photons, which carry more energy. (But each individual photon at a specific wavelength will contain the same amount of energy.) For a blackbody (not a gas) the higher temperature also tends to increase the amount of radiation more at shorter wavelengths, so you see a shift in the wavelength with the peak emissions:
Increased concentration of gases means more molecules to absorb radiation, which means that individual photons will travel shorter distances before being absorbed. This is simply due to the number of extra CO2 molecules, not their concentration in ppm relative to the remaining gases. You can read about the proper way to use measurements of gas concentrations for radiation absorption calculations in this blog post:
https://skepticalscience.com/from-email-bag-beer-lambert.html
The comments in that blog post are also useful in explaining some of the related effects.
Once the proper calculations of the effects of adding CO2 and water vapour are done - yes, the seemingly small increase in water vapour will have that 1C warming effect.
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Vidar2032 at 00:08 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Isn't i so that greenhouse gases emits radiation into space at a more or less fixed temperature? Say, CO2 emits radiation to space at 220 kelvin, while water vaport emits radiation to space at 260 kelvin.
As far as my understanding goes, the only increased greenhouse effect is that higher concentration of these gases makes the absorption spectra broader so that more radiation to space happens at those lower temperatures. Since water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, accounting for approx 50% of the greenhouse effect, and its content in the atmosphere has increased by 'only' 7% due to the 1°C increase in atmospheric temperatures, how much additional greenhouse effect can this actually have? I would believe that 1°C additional warming from 7% more water vapor is an overstatement. What do you think?
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Log at 21:19 PM on 15 June 2023CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Hello,
I have a question about the Suess effect. I read that with an airborne fraction of 55% and the isotopic signature of anthropic emissions of about -28‰, the calculated delta 13C is too low compared to observations. I am trying to find precise explanations about it.
Could you explain, or provide some sources where I could find information ?
Thank you !
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:56 PM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1574 (and earlier),
I note and agree with your concern regarding harmful unsustainable activity related to renewable energy systems. But I share that concern in a more holistic way. It is undeniable that nasty ways of doing things also happened and continue to happen in the developed fossil fuelled system (but you seem to be unaware of that).
My concern is based on increasing awareness and understanding that the developed socioeconomic political systems have promoted, and will excuse and prolong, harmful developments. The more popular and profitable something becomes, especially with misleading marketing promotion, the more damaging it is and the harder it is to stop.
The lack of ethical governing of the socioeconomic political systems to limit harm done explains why the awful things you mention happen and are not rapidly ended. The desire for 'more benefit - cheaper and easier' can lead to all types of nasty unsustainable belief and interests that conflict with increased awareness of what is harmful and the need to limit the harm done.
I share the concern that those nastier ways of doing things can indeed be the ways that renewable energy systems get developed. But it has to be admitted that those nastier ways of doing things include 'prolonging fossil fuel use with the excuse that cheaper is better'.
Cheaper is only better if it is not more harmful. And it is understandable that more expensive ways of doing things that are less harmful should displace less expensive but more damaging ways. But that requires more people to be more aware of all the harmful realities of what has developed. And that awareness would lead to understanding that reducing the harmfulness of what has developed is not 'ruining the developed economy'. It is correcting the developed unsustainable perceptions by ending understandably damaging developments to create a more sustainable economy.
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Philippe Chantreau at 12:20 PM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
- Correct Rob. Oil refining cobalt represents about half of total consumption. However it should be said that a lot of it is recoverable, since it is used as a catalyst. Furthermore, it is worth pointing also that the largest lithium producer in the world is Australia, followed closely by Chile and together they represent 77% of world production.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:35 AM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1574....
Most of the cobalt that's mined is used for refining oil into gasoline. And with battery technology, there are alternatives to cobalt coming to market. For refining oil, there is no alternative.
Similarly, lithium mining is already less a problem than fossil fuels. And, lithium is found in sea water. Extraction technologies are currently in development.
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Charlie_Brown at 10:03 AM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1568
I am happy to help answer questions, as long as I am being taken seriously and not just being taken for a ride. @1533 and @1534, you asked for a simple answer. I provided answers in @1535 and @1536. Perhaps you didn’t understand them, but since you repeated the same question in @1544 by saying that you “just could not believe a trace gas of .04% of the atmosphere could have such an effect, especially with the history of CO2 volumes and estimated historic atmospheric temperatures not jiving with each other.” Without saying what it was about my answer that you didn’t understand, but conclude that you don’t believe CO2 can have such an effect and then jump to an incorrect distraction that CO2 and temperature do not jive, you rejected my answer. I find that to be disingenuous.If you are sincere, we could try again at this simple answer. Even at 0.04%, there are sufficient CO2 molecules in the cold upper atmosphere between 11 and 20 kilometers to create an emitting layer. Because it is cold, radiant energy emission to space is reduced. By the global energy balance, reduced energy lost to space means increased energy captured in the global system. There is no math for you to do, but you do have to trust that scientists do understand Beer’s Law and are capable of doing the math for you. Phillipe Chantreau @1572 made an excellent post regarding just some of the background hard science of radiant energy transfer. There are many more posts of excellent research throughout this site, although it does take some digging to find them. Please do as you suggest and do some homework, including on the topic of economics of costs for damage and abatement. It’s all there.
Trust in good science should have been earned by years of research and detailed calculations. There are a few so-called scientists out there who have published bad information, like the Gerlich & Tscheuschner paper that started this whole thread on the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This site is all about rebutting the bad information. See my post @1528 about this myth started by G&T. Or maybe you did that before posting @1529. So go back and read @1535 and @1536 again. Then, if you are still confused, maybe I can help clarify a specific concept before you jump to conclusions.
By the way, consider conservation of energy, not conservation of photons. A CO2 molecule absorbs a photon. Its energy state increases. Since it was in thermal equilibrium with adjacent molecules of any gas, it may lose the extra energy by collision. But then the adjacent molecules are at an increased energy state, so they may give the energy back by collision. Or the CO2 molecule may emit a photon to shed the extra energy. By Kirchoff’s law, absorptance = emittance at thermal equilibrium. Any disturbance in the energy balance upsets thermal equilibrium. Finally, note that it is the energy lost to space that can be determined by the global energy balance. It is problematic and not productive to worry about all of the collisions, absorptions, and reemissions as energy works its way through the atmosphere. That will only get you lost. Similarly, that is why it is not production to worry about convection and the water cycle. All of that just moves energy around in the atmosphere and sets of the atmosphere’s temperature profile. It is the atmospheric temperature profile that sets up radiant energy transfer.
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Likeitwarm at 07:42 AM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
sysop 1568
Very good points. You obviously are much more thorough than myself. My reference to an external energy source was just to point out that the imaginary object did not have one. I know I could have expanded on it to give everyone a more complete picture of my idea and realize that now. I'm not a good scientist.
Rob Honeycutt 1571
I was thinking of the dirty production of Lithium in China and cobalt by children in africa.
scaddenp 1573
It has been said, I think on Rabbet's site, that CO2 rarely loses gained energy by emitting a photon. Usually by collisions with N2 or O2 lower in the atmosphere. Just read that today.
I am convince that "some day" in the future, we will not be burning as much fossil fuel,but that day is much farther off than the politicians say it is. I think a slow phase out will work and not destroy the economy. My reasoning is that the cost of fuel is in everything we use every day, so when fossil fuel production was reduced 2 1/2 years ago prices of everthing started to rise. Not smart. We can transition to electric everything but at a slower pace. I think someday we will discover the equivalent of the Star Trek dilithium crystals.
I have been interested in electric vehicles for 50 years. I bought Nikola stock because that market is huge and I will make money on electric trucks. Everything we use come to us on a truck, today.
All that aside, I have learned a lot from all of the more educated that post here. I think I'll quit posting because I really think I cause everyone on this site undue consternation. I'll just read for a while and post a question now and then after due dilligence on my own research. I still have questions but I'll see if I can find the answer myself on your site.
Moderator Response:[BL] I wasn't born a "good scientist" either. It takes time to learn things, and if you want to see what path I took to get where I am, you can see it by clicking on the About menu option and choosing "Team".
If you look at the Comments Policy, in the first paragraph it says "we welcome genuine discussion as both an aid to understanding and a means of correcting our inadvertent errors." Asking questions is reasonable, but it is generally expected that people will read the material in the blog post before asking a lot of questions.
When you first arrived here, you were following a pattern of questioning that we often see from people who are not here to learn. Often, they are not interested in the answers, because they are already convinced that "science" has it wrong. They think that there is no answer to their question, and they are just here with an attitude that they can "show the scientists up". That provokes an "oh, no, not again" kind of reaction that can be tough on someone who really does want to learn.
It is clear that you have read a number of web sites that, frankly, are poor sources of information. Without a background in the subject, identifying those sites for what they are can be very difficult.
Do continue to read, do continue to learn, and do ask questions when you encounter information that is difficult to understand. But do make an effort to provide focused questions - starting with an explanation of how you got to where you are and why the question is in your mind. The best answers follow good questions.
...and I think you would benefit from the on-line course (free!) that BaerbelW pointed to in this comment.
...free online course (MOOC) "Denial101x - Making sense of climate science denial"?
As you look through the different pages here, you will often see that we have included video segments from that course. That can give you a sampling of what to expect.
Closing on your comment about CO2 losing energy by collision: you were probably reading this blog post. A key point in that article is that CO2 will also gain energy by collisions. Most of the energy transfer is from molecule to molecule (all gases), and that is what leads to all gases having the same average temperature - but CO2 and other greenhouse gases do emit IR radiation. And how much they emit depends on the atmospheric temperature - because it is collisions with the other molecules that gives the CO2 molecule the energy it gets rid of by emitting radiation. Absorbed radiation by the smaller number of greenhouse gases leads to heating of all gases, and when all gases get hot, greenhouse gases get more energy from them so they can emit more radiation. We're back to needing to follow all the steps involved - not just one or two in isolation.
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ubrew12 at 04:42 AM on 15 June 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #23
There's an interesting aspect to this list. Al Gore exaggerated a few points in his film 'An Inconvenient Truth' (but it's an exaggeration itself to call those 'errors'). In many cases, Gore reported aspects of the science of attribution that science itself wasn't ready to report. Yet, the very next item in this list helps explain why Gore might have felt the need to do that. By the time Gore's film came out, climate action had been advocated by Science all the way to the White House, for over 40 years with little to show for it! You can excuse LBJ for taking a pass at action, consumed as he was at the time with Civil Rights legislation and the prospect of a ground war in Southeast Asia. But 40 years later? Perhaps what Gore felt was needed was a bracing slap in the face, to wake the subject up.
No such action is needed today, of course. 20 years on from Gore's film it is clear: from here on out, Nature will do the slapping.
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scaddenp at 11:32 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm - thanks for those answers, though if you realize that IR leaving the surface is captured by GHG (CO2, water) without having traveled very far; and then re-radiated, I am surprized that you were not understanding that GHG gases result in a warming surface. ok, file that away.
I leave others to discuss sources of your beliefs about renewables and chinese efforts, but I would have to ask this: If you became convinced that conversion to renewables was not going destroy world economies would that reduce your skeptics about global warming do you think? If it had been obvious to you when you first heard about global warming that getting off fossil fuels was both possible and economical, then would you have been so skeptical of science?
Do you feel differently about CO2"Science" now that you have seen them play with strawman arguments or would like other examples of their game before you wrote them off?
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:05 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Liikeitwarm,
I think you have a lot of misconceptions about what is known and understood about IR behavior in the atmosphere and what is not. This is an extensively researched subject, it has produced results used in many engineering fields that require precision and reliability. You need to peruse through Iacono and Clough (1995) and take a long studious look at the famous graph that is in that paper. Then look at the work that has been done since. IR absorption and re-emission is thoroughly modeled by the MODTRAN line by line model and to an even finer degree by HITRAN. The full IR atmospheric profile is known. Accumulating GHGs raises the effective emission altitude. Do some reading about that too. MODTRAN is a major component of IR weapon guidance systems. The US Air Force holds patents on MODTRAN. They don't care about anyone's opinion or what is on this or that website.
This is one of these areas of knowledge where your opinions and beliefs (or anyone else's, for that matter) are of no importance whatsoever. All the heavy lifting has already been done, and there is a right answer: the physics-based theoretical calculations, painstakingly accumulated to form the line by line models, have been validated by measurements at all applicable altitudes. This is not an area of uncertainty that is the subject of significant scientific debate.
No matter what you think happens to IR radiation leaving the ground, what actually happens has been very well studied, very well quantified, and is based on physics. It is possible that a major discovery could revolutionize our understanding, but the practical consequences of it on this particular subject would be similar to that of general relativity on the workings of an internal combustion engine, i.e. negligible.
Moderator Response:[BL] Likeitwarm is responding to this question from scaddenp, which included the following phrase:
Please dont look it up or attempt to calculate it- I am really interested in your intuition on this, not your knowledge.
Let scaddenp respond to likeitwarm's intuition. I'm sure he will ask more questions.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:06 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
And on this comment you are also wrong: "Solar and wind energy have been shown that they are anything but cheap and dirtier to build, at this time."
