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Comments 21901 to 21950:

21901. Rob Honeycutt at 12:35 PM on 21 December 2016
       Why Coal Is Not Our Future
       

       Andrew... Being that there are no markets that are 100% coal, how do you justify that statement? Are you going to erect a small coal fired generator in your back yard? 

21902. Andrew1776 at 12:18 PM on 21 December 2016
       Why Coal Is Not Our Future
       

       Electric vehicles make coal more viable and cheaper. Cars can be charged at night which will improve utilization of existing coal-fired power plants.  Producing more power without capital expenditures using the cheapest fuel available is going to make electricity cheaper at the same time demand is increasing.  The coal and natural gas industry should be all for EVs.  

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] This is really getting into sloganeering and verging on trolling. To support that slogan, you need to show that unsubsidized cost of coal generation is lower than other forms. Useful resource would be here.

       Make sure you back any assertions you are making with appropriate evidence or risk getting your comments deleted.

21903. Andrew1776 at 12:13 PM on 21 December 2016
       Why Coal Is Not Our Future
       

       I've got a deposit on a Tesla Model 3.  I'm going to have bumper stickers made that say, "Powered by American coal."  If anyone wants one, let me know.

21904. psloss at 12:09 PM on 21 December 2016
       The Perfect Tide: Sea Level and the Future of South Florida
       

       Looks like Miami will become the Venice of the Americas.

21905. Andrew1776 at 12:09 PM on 21 December 2016
       Ocean acidification isn't serious
       

       Eclectic,

       While your comments have the appearance of politeness, they are ad hominems. Where are the moderators on this? 

       More importantly, you don't address the issue. Do you agree that life evolved when the oceans were pH 7.4? We call this "physiological conditions".  My premise is that it should be good for the planet for man-made CO2 to restore the earth to physiological conditions.     

       Climatology produced numerous papers (several in high profile journals such as nature) saying that carbonate-based organisms would be harmed by increasing CO2.  Yet these organisms evolved in a high CO2 environment.  It just doesn't make sense.  Climatology produces "models" saying the coccolithophores are going to be destroyed, but then when someone actually measured what has happened to coccolithophores as pH has decreased, it turns out they increased by 10 fold.  see: http://hub.jhu.edu/2015/11/26/rapid-plankton-growth-could-signal-climate-change/

       Of course the original theory was catastrophic harm to coccolithophores.  Now the problem is catestrophic success.  

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link. Please provide a link to support that statement "Climatology produces "models" saying the coccolithophores are going to be destroyed".

21906. Daniel Mocsny at 11:21 AM on 21 December 2016
       This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science
       

       Dcrickett @6: I agree that rumors of our post-racial society are greatly exaggerated. However, as challenging as life may be for multi-racial children growing up in our environment of lingering racism, I suspect the challenges were considerably worse a century ago - back when "miscegenation" was still illegal in many jurisdictions.

       Some of it is probably geographical. Compared to cosmopolitan places like New York City (which nonetheless gifted us with Donald Trump), the cultural values in much of Red State America might resemble a kind of living fossil of intolerance.

       However, consider that as long as we still have identifiable racial groups living in close proximity for multiple generations (even centuries), that strongly suggest most people must have an in-group mating preference. As long as most people continue to be observably racist on one of life's most consequential decisions, it would be premature to declare us a post-racial society.

       Another indication is the persistence of distinct racial dialects among people who grow up within walking distance of each other. Children learn their speech accents from their peers (which is why children of immigrants do not learn the accents of their parents, but rather of their host peer group). Thus if children growing up in close physical proximity speak differently from each other, they must be experiencing remarkable segregation in early life.

       We might be "aspirationally" post-racial, at least among the college-educated minority. That is, among well-educated people in the United States, possibly a majority believe we should be post-racial, even if we aren't yet.

21907. Daniel Mocsny at 11:04 AM on 21 December 2016
       This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science
       

       nigelj@13 - astrology has been popular for centuries. So was pre-scientific medicine, until science invented evidence-based medicine. Even today, evidence-based medicine cannot cure all maladies (Zuckerberg notwithstanding), so a thriving market for pseudoscientific nostrums (such as homeopathy, acupuncture, etc.) persists. When science can't yet give people what they want, they turn to whoever claims the ability.

       As to where selective reasoning (compartmentalized irrationality) comes from, an obvious contributor is America's $1 trillion religion industry. Every organized religion demands that its followers accept the extraordinary claims of its human leaders as facts, without any conclusive evidence. For any religion to survive, it must persuade people to reject critical thinking insofar as its unprovable theology goes. The vast majority of Americans (and indeed, humans) were taught to compartmentalize rationality on mother's knee - mere schooling is no match for that. (Upwards of 90% of religious people believe the religion they were born into.) This creates a vast reservoir of defective cognition that is all too easy for cynical political and commercial interests to appropriate for their own ends.

       Note to moderator(s): the comments policy says "Rants about politics, religion, faith, (...) will be deleted." Given that religious Americans just played a decisive role in saddling us with Donald Trump, it may be difficult for an informed discussion about climate policy to steer clear of religion for at least the next four years - much as it would be difficult to discuss the Titanic without mentioning icebergs. While there are undoubtedly some religious people who embrace environmental values (such as the Creation Care movement), the profane and sexually immoral Donald Trump won record-high support among white Evangelicals. I can understand the desire to avoid tangling with religion, but while we're indulging in principled restraint the forces of anti-science have already moved in there. Saving the climate might require deliberately accelerating the move away from faith which is already well underway in the USA (but not far enough along yet to have prevented the orange menace from seizing power).

       I know some people who are both deeply religious and deeply concerned about the environment, and who accept scientific reality. But fewer of those people are casting votes than those for whom religion means rejecting science. Learning how to talk people out of faith may be a productive route - perhaps the only viable route - for talking them out of their science denial. That is, when someone's religious faith happens to be tightly interlinked with their science denial, you probably can't cure the latter without eliciting in them a crisis of faith. Especially when we recall what religious people put their faith in: the words of their religious leaders and peers, in other words their particular sect. The people they have entrusted with their putatively eternal souls have assured them that climate change is bunk, so having to conclude that their religious authorities were completely wrong about a temporal issue of great importance would be deeply threatening to their hope for an afterlife. That obstacle vanishes when they conclude there is no reason to imagine any group of humans has any reliable knowledge about an afterlife - that is, when they move up the rationality scale to agnosticism or atheism.

21908. RedBaron at 10:57 AM on 21 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       Scaddenp, 

       I know of a study in progess in Idaho on exactly what you would like to see. But it isn't finished yet, much less published.

21909. scaddenp at 10:12 AM on 21 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       All information useful. I cant do anything personally - I am geologist/geophysics but share space with interested researchers. You are right about getting a species into NZ that we dont already have - that would be long process. At moment kikuyu and paspalum are only common established species and both are outgrown heavily by rye for 3/4 of the country.

       What would be interesting to compare would be year round gas emissions from pasture between here and good US - might shed light on soil process differences.

21910. RedBaron at 09:45 AM on 21 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       @scaddenp,

       The most hardy C4 grass I know of from N America is prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata) which can survive overwinter rhizome temps in the soil to –20 °C to –24 °C and also late hard frosts too. Unfortunately it is considered poor forage for dairy. It's fine for beef, (especially HPG) but too low in protein and palatability to realy be considered for a dairy. There is a subspecies of switchgrass called upland switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) that is almost as hardy. Switchgrass is an excellent forage for cattle; however, it has shown toxicity in horses, sheep, and goats and the unpland variety doesn't get as tall as the other types. Still might be a bit too tall for most dairy herds though. So probably not a good choice either.

       However, if you give me some time to contact a couple scientist friends of mine that work up north I might be able to get you a better answer. One was working with symbiotic grassland microbiology in Yellowstone Park, which is subject to frosts and hard freezes all year, even mid summer. Likely there are a couple C4 grasses locally adapted to those extreme weather conditions. The other working specifically with Dairy grazing in Wisconsin and is an expert in dairy forage grasses. I MIGHT be able to work out a blend for you to trial as long as you can manage any regulatory issues that might arise. I do know New Zealand has some pretty strict regulation regarding grasses.

       On a slightly different but related subject. Back to the carbon cycle. I have this study bookmarked. It won't necessarily help your dairy, but it is important information in developing the grassland biome restoration as a CO2 mitigation strategy.

       Global distribution of C3 and C4 vegetation:
       Carbon cycle implications

       Pretty good information for those modeling potential impacts. 

21911. Jonbo69 at 09:14 AM on 21 December 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51
       

       Thanks for the feedback. I've already had a bit of a go at the author re the quality of the site he has published on, whlie trying to remain polite considering what he was writing seemed totally bonkers. I was just wondering if he was a known 'skeptic' but it seems he does not even qualify as that, and whether he deserved a more comprehensive rebuttal, but it doesn't seem worth it. It just seems a bit of a cheek to link to his trashy paper and talks that he's given as a response to a paper published in Nature Geoscience.

21912. nigelj at 08:50 AM on 21 December 2016
       Republicans and Democrats alike want more clean energy
       

       Chriskoz @1, good comment.  Maybe politicians are more sceptical of climate science than some other groups because they are more in the older age group, and so haven't had much if any formal education on it. I'm absolutely sure I have seen decent quality public polling finding young people are generally less sceptical about climate change presumably due to the education they get.

       Trump's grammar isn't too good and he is very plainly spoken. I wonder if this is deliberate, to connect with blue collar workers. Remember he is a property developer, so deals a lot with builders.

       Trump comes out with the most absurd statements and policy ideas, but I just cant believe he is unintelligent. He has a degree from a top ranking university and holds a business empire together (just). However the combination of intelligence and crazy ideas and absurd claims is if anything particularly concerning, as it just doesn't make sense, and suggests some sort of personality issue and a serious disregard for honesty.

21913. Riduna at 08:39 AM on 21 December 2016
       Why Coal Is Not Our Future
       

       Chris O’Niell - The sentence you quote refers to coal use for electricity generation in Australia only. It does not refer to global use of coal for this purpose or metal smelting, though some major users may be reducing consumption.

       Global production and use of oil and gas are equally significant contributors of greenhouse gases, as are other anthropogenic activities, such as farming and damage to carbon sinks.

21914. nigelj at 08:04 AM on 21 December 2016
       This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science
       

       Daniel Mocsny @11, fair comments. You would indeed think the marvel of a smartphone, that most people now own, would be very good evidence of the power and validity of science, and as you say predictive ability is important.

       "When people have incorrect theories they rarely produce useful results - see for example medicine in the Middle Ages,"

       True, but one of the problems is flawed theories like astrology make such general predictions some of these are right, and those that aren't are quickly forgotten, glossed over or excused. This is why people get sucked in.

       Some people just have this peculiar ability to be intelligent and technically rigorous yet take crazy ideas seriously at the same time. I'm not sure where that comes from!

       We need to teach far more logic and analytical thinking in schools. It would help explain not just the power of science, but the importance of looking for evidence, and weaknesses in climate change denial, religion, and weaknesses in things like anti vaccination thinking or 911 conspiracies. I'm not saying all scepticism is wrong, but people need better mental tools to sort the wheat from the chaff.

21915. scaddenp at 08:02 AM on 21 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       Well I have to admire your confidence. Any pointers at all to grass species composition? Most of our dairying is south of limit for C4 grasses which might also be also be a factor.

21916. Daniel Mocsny at 07:13 AM on 21 December 2016
       The Perfect Tide: Sea Level and the Future of South Florida
       

       See also: The Seas Are Rising Around Donald Trump - "He may deny global warming, but it's still threatening to swamp his properties."

       The article seems a bit optimistic about Trump's life expectancy, though. It says:

       "Despite Trump's pronouncements, there is strong evidence that he—personally—could pay the price for climate change in his property interests along the South Florida oceanfront and Intracoastal Waterway."

       and then goes on to project the impact of sea level rise on some of Trump's signature properties by mid-century, when the 1946-born Trump would be over 100 years old. (Just 0.02 percent of the population, or 55,000 people, are 100 years old or older in the USA now. Only 71 people were documented to be older than 110 years on the entire planet in 2014.) Perhaps that is why Ivanka Trump claims to take the problem more seriously - she is much more likely to be alive to deal with the mess her father's science denial can only worsen.

21917. nigelj at 07:01 AM on 21 December 2016
       Republicans and Democrats alike want more clean energy
       

       The whole thing is a frustrating, absurd sort of situation. I have also seen various polls indicating the majority of Americans take climate change seriously, and think something should be done. But they get ignored by politicians of all persuasions, although more so the republicans.

       Why are the views of the majority of Americans so out of step with politicians, and so ignored by congress, or the senate? I just think the main reason is we have politicians (of all persuasions) afraid of upsetting the fossil fuel lobby, who presumably make big campaign donations.

       Politicans are also acutely worried about votes, and the votes of the climate sceptical minority would be a concern. Politicans worry about every single vote.

       We also have political parties being more concerned about branding themselves over the climate issue than the public at large would be, and the Republicans have taken a very definite sceptical brand. It then becomes a question of loyalty to the brand, no matter how absurd this is.

       One solution would be to reduce the funding of elections by the private sector. You could have public funding of elections out of taxation, but I admit the chances of this happening in America would not be large given their general ideological leanings as a society. However the Democrats tried to put limits on campaign donations about 10 years ago, but this bill was struck down by the courts as 'unconstitutional'. Its hard to see an answer to the situation.

       The best way of getting through to Trump may be mainly to promote that renewable energy is just good business, and a smart deal. He might relate to this.

21918. chriskoz at 06:59 AM on 21 December 2016
       Republicans and Democrats alike want more clean energy
       

       American voters are more knowledgeable about energy and the energy economy than is the president elect.

       That's an understatement. In general, every citizen enrolled in 6th grade of school knows more about almost all aspects of life, than the president elect who did not pass that level, starting from the richness of their everyday vocabulary because they can use more than 200 different words.

       It follows that virtually everything 6th grader knows eclipses president elect's knowledge (maybe excluding the physical appearance of Apprentice show female members), including energy economics. That incudes everyone eligible for voting. Why they knowingly decided to elect such a parody of a man (the studiesI linked above were known before the election) ? I'm not going to speculate because my logic does not apply here: in a post-truth world, the elections results are simply irrational.

21919. RedBaron at 06:25 AM on 21 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       @scaddenp,

        I wish I could be of more help to you. Maybe one day if I ever get my project here to a point I can leave it for a period of time, I might hop on a flight down there and see if I can work it out for you. That's going to be a few years though even at best case scenario. So don't count on it any time soon. I'd be willing to bet you a beer I can get it to work in under 1-3 years. But right now I simply don't have enough info to really give more than lines of exploration for you to figure out and trial. 

21920. nigelj at 06:22 AM on 21 December 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51
       

       Jonbo@69,  I wouldnt get too worried about skeptical research papers. There is a lot of complete nonsense out there, and I have given up worrying about it, unless it gets the attention of websites like this.

       Here is an example. I recall a paper by Roger Pielke. Now this guy is actually a highly qualified sceptical climate scientist, who claimed there had been no sea level rise since 1970. Now this guy does have some real expertise,  but I still had big doubts, because what he was saying was so far outside the consensus.

       A google search revealed a paper published attacking the Pielke paper, authored by no less than 50 scientists. It became plain to even to non climate scientist like me their criticisms were totally valid. Pielke had no understanding of satellite data on sea level rise, and was outside his area of expertise, basically. And this guy was at least qualified in climate science, so if he is wrong, the people on the fringes are even more likely to be wrong.

21921. Daniel Mocsny at 06:17 AM on 21 December 2016
       This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science
       

       Tom Curtis @10, and also see the French trompe l'oeil which means to deceive the eye, or an optical illusion (to play the eye like a trumpet). Specifically it refers to art forms which trick the viewer. See the many examples on Wikipedia, such as the famed Palazzo Spada.

21922. Daniel Mocsny at 06:06 AM on 21 December 2016
       This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science
       

       nigelj @8: "Arguments about levels of certainty in science can be twisted around to discredit things to the point it becomes absurd."

       Absurd, and always hypocritical. Everyone who plays the uncertainty card does so inconsistently and arbitrarily. For example, the Evangelical Christians who voted for Trump in record numbers reject the overwhelming evidence for evolution and climate science while swallowing the load of unsubstantiated bunkum that constitutes their religious folklore without so much as a shred of conclusive evidence. For example, Mark 16:18 quotes Jesus as predicting that his followers would safely handle venomous snakes, drink poison without being harmed, and heal the sick. I've met many Christians - and I once was one - and none of them can do any of those things through supernatural means alone. For example, any Christians who do heal the sick use the same evidence-based medicine as other health professionals regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.

       As I pointed out, the existence of computers that work, airplanes that fly, communication systems that circle the globe, GPS that gives your position on Earth to the nearest meter, etc., show that science is almost certainly correct about lots of things. When people have incorrect theories they rarely produce useful results - see for example medicine in the Middle Ages, when visiting a physician was often more reliably lethal than getting no treatment for an illness. If you have wrong ideas about the causes of diseases, your solutions are unlikely to help. Conversely, if your ideas consistently produce good results, it's almost impossible that your ideas can be wrong, just as a blindfolded sharpshooter will essentially never perform better than when he or she can see the target.

       "The chances we are hallucinating about the world, or living in a "matrix" like that movie are probably one in a trillion trillion."

       There's no way to guess about the probability that we are living in a "Matrix"-style comprehensive illusion, since no experiment one could construct within the Matrix would reveal its presence. Rather we can say that no one takes the prospect seriously - we all carry on as if we live in a real world with real consequences. If you jump off a tall building with no safety equipment, the real you will almost certainly really die, or at a minimum experience serious injury. Nobody treats death as if it is merely a simulation - not even the religious people who loudly insist that death is merely a transition to something better.

       "Climate science is 95% certain, according to the IPCC."

       Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis contains a list of claims each with its own uncertainty. For example, warming of the atmosphere and ocean system is unequivocal. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since 1950, with the level of confidence having increased since the fourth report. ("Extremely likely" means 95%-100%, so 95% certainty would be the low end.)

       Warming since 1950 is a tiny fraction of what's coming, so we can expect the uncertainty to decrease as the human warming signal grows steadily larger in relation to natural climate variability. Climate science is more certain about our climate future than it is certain about detecting the human signal in recent climate change.

       By analogy, medical science might have trouble detecting the damage from tobacco to a teenaged smoker who is, for now, in good health. But check back after today's teenager has gone on to smoke for the next 40 years. Then the smoking damage signal should be clearly evident.

21923. Alpinist at 23:57 PM on 20 December 2016
       The Perfect Tide: Sea Level and the Future of South Florida
       

       I'm confused. I thought we were going to be draining swamps, instead we're creating new, and more contaminated swamps? Time for the GOP in the US to repeal the laws of physics. Buckle up.

21924. Tom Curtis at 23:08 PM on 20 December 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51
       

       JonBo69 @2, wikipedia says that "Academia.edu proclaims it supports the open science or open access movements and, in particular, instant distribution of research, and a peer-review system that occurs alongside distribution, instead of prior to it."  Given that there is "instant distribution" and that "peer review" occurs "alongside distribution, instead of prior to it", it follows that publication on Academia.edu requires no prior peer review.  Further, without accessing the actual peer review comments we cannot say anything about the standard, or even existence of actual peer review of the paper.  A quick search for "Arya C Cycle" on google scholar shows that only the paper you link to discusses it.  A more general google search shows the only person talking about it on the web is the original author.  Apparently it is an idea so bad that even AGW deniers are not interested in pushing it.  Except, apparently, you ... 

21925. MA Rodger at 22:10 PM on 20 December 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51
       

       Jonbo69,

       He may be scientist but he is outside his science with that paper (access via Google Scholar). And he is also operating way outside his competence. Even allowing for the poor English, the paper is entirely nonsensical.

21926. Jonbo69 at 20:15 PM on 20 December 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51
       

       In the comments section under the article in Carbon Brief re glacial melt, there is a scientist promoting a paper in which he claims the current trend in glacial melt is part of a natural cycle. I was wondering if anyone knows of this scientist and his work? I think the online journal he has published in looks very dubious, but according to Wikipedia, it is peer reviewed.

       https://www.carbonbrief.org/shrinking-glaciers-categorical-evidence-climate-change

       http://www.academia.edu/8915481/Aryas_C_Cycle_-_Climate_change_natural_---Dr_Ritesh_arya

21927. MA Rodger at 20:15 PM on 20 December 2016
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Noting that we are off-topic on this post (as pointed out @317), this is a brief extra point to the foregoing.

       The climate of Venus is overwhelmingly CO2 and this does provide a strong greenhouse effect. But the temperature of Venus requires more as a pure CO2 greenhouse contains many holes in the IR spectrum. (This is expained well p57-58 in Chapter 3 Goody & Walker 1973.) These holes are now known to be plugged by H2O & SO2 but these require to be at a level that does not greatly increase albedo & cool the planet. (See this paper by Bullock & Grispoon.)

21928. Eclectic at 20:05 PM on 20 December 2016
       Ocean acidification isn't serious
       

       Andrew1776, please revise your spelling as you go along.   The dianasaurs of the crestacean period are extinct - but they deserve some respect, all the same !

       Like 1776, your ideas are certainly revolutionary (but not in any way evolutionary).  You seem to be suggesting (against the evidence) that the marine life forms will benefit from lower pH and a much higher pH-logiston level.   Or some similar eighteenth century level of concepts.

       Andrew, there have been a great many advances in science since 1776.   You should embrace these advances, rather than reject them.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] please stick to comments on content not grammar or style.

21929. Andrew1776 at 19:03 PM on 20 December 2016
       Ocean acidification isn't serious
       

       Rob P

       I'm interested in your thoughts on rapid rise in CO2 causing mass extinction.  You say that CO2 was high during the crestacean period, but then you say it was a rapid rise in CO2 that caused the catestrophic events of the K/Pg boundary.  How did it rapidly rise if it was already high? 

21930. Andrew1776 at 18:45 PM on 20 December 2016
       Ocean acidification isn't serious
       

       Glenn Tamblyn

       Thanks for the response. My field is materials science. I have a fair amount of experience with cement chemistry, which as you may know involves calcining limestone (CaCO3) and creating calcium silicate hydrates that precipitate to form cement. The chemisty is actually quite complex.  You may not know this, but Le Chatlier was a cement chemist and he described the Le Chatlier priniciple in his PhD dissertation on cement hydration.   

       So yes I get the chemistry. And no I didn't find the "OA not OK" series to be helpful. Most of what I saw was just a review of basic acid/base chemistry (no pun intended) =). The "peanut throwing" example is quite below my level of understanding. Perhaps it is helpful for people without a chemistry background.

       I'm intersted in finding real data on the optimal pH for for coral.  Coral evolved when the oceans had a pH of 7.4.  My theory is that lower pH should be good for the vast majority of coral (perhaps pH 7.4-7.8).

       I did a google search for "coral mineralization".  The first article that turns up is Bionature 2011. It says the rate limiting step of coral mineralization is CO2(aq) + H2O CaCO2.  In other words, Coral production is limited by the amount of CO2 dissolved in the ocean. Which is what you expect. CO2 is the raw material for making Coral. Increasing its concentration should have a beneficial affect. Duh, no?

       So how do climatoligist come to the opposite conclusion? I'm not exactly sure, but it seems to be related to the fact that rising temperatures reduce the solubility of CO2.  So theoretically, if the temperature rises, there would be less dissolved CO2 in the ocean and it would harm the coral.  Of course that isn't happening. The pH of the ocean is lower, not higher. And you can have it both ways. You can't say that the CO2 is going to harm the Coral because the temeprature is going to be higher and reduce the CO2 and use that as a justification why increasing CO2 is bad. If the pH is lower, it can't be higher. The logic is just wrong. 

       Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of any actual evidence that higher temperature is bad for Coral appart from the risk of less CO2 in the water. So, given the ample data we have that pH of the oceans is dropping, the temperature doesn't matter. The Coral should be healthier in years to come because of lower pH.

       I didn't see anything about boric acid. Perhaps I'll dive into that another night. I'm sure it is just like everyting else I've seen...all the data points to CO2 having a beneficial effect on planet. If anything, the planet is sick right now due to lack of CO2. 

       Believe it or not, I'm an environmentalist.  But every time I look at the raw data it suggests that CO2 is good for the environment. I've come to this forum because I'm at a complete loss as to how climatoligists think CO2 is bad. It's plant food. What's not to like about feeding the plants?

       Moderator Response:

       [Rob P] 

       "Which is what you expect. CO2 is the raw material for making Coral. Increasing its concentration should have a beneficial affect"

       It's a shame you don't understand the peanut-throwing analogy, because it explains perfectly why your non-expert intuition is wrong here. Once equilibrium shifts toward dissolution the coral polyp has to expend more energy to build its aragonite skeleton. A number of lab experiments, in published papers, seem to bear this out.

       It's the availability of carbonate ions in the calcifying fluid that is important. The polyp raises pH in order to supersaturate the calcifying fluid and allow aragonite crystals to precipitate. By lowering ocean pH we're making it harder for the coral polyp to build its skeleton.

21931. Andrew1776 at 15:49 PM on 20 December 2016
       Rapid climate changes more deadly than asteroid impacts in Earth’s past – study shows.
       

       The only reason people even believe a far fetched story like "an asteroid hit the earth" or a volcanic eruption is that nobody has proposed anything more plausible.

       So here's a proposal: There are two things that support all life on earth: CO2 and sunlight. There is only one of those components that we know for sure has decreased by orders of magnitude over an extended period of time. Hint: it isn't sunlight.

       CO2 is the ingredient of life. The catestrophic events in history are likely caused by organisms (plants or plankton) that evolved and depleted CO2 to a new low, killing everyting that lived off the plants that required higher CO2 concentrations. Adding CO2 to our atmosphere is likely to be the best thing we could do for our planet.

       I predict that in 200 years from now people will look back on the global warming issue with bewilderment. How could restoring the chemical basis of life (CO2) be a bad thing. Our progeny will think we are as unsophisticated as the society that encarcerated Galileo for saying the earth revolves around the sun.

21932. Andrew1776 at 15:49 PM on 20 December 2016
       Rapid climate changes more deadly than asteroid impacts in Earth’s past – study shows.
       

       Both the "asteroid" theory and the "Decan traps" theory have three very glaring problems. The first is the classic scientific blunder: correlation is not causation. There is no evidence that rapid increases in CO2 harms life or that the temperature rose.  They only know that the volcanos erupted (or maybe an asteroid hit the earth) and then they speculate about the possibilities of what might have happened. 

       Secondly, the extintion of the dianasaurs and the Decan traps aren't even necessarily correlated. The extintion of the dinasaurs isn't well defined and some believe it happened over millions of years.  The inaccuracy of dating the extinction of dinasaurs means that even the correlation is speculation.

       Third, over the course of evolution, CO2 has dropped from seven thousand ppm to 180 ppm.  A catastrophic rise in CO2 is not consistent with what was happening, which is a decrease in CO2.

21933. Glenn Tamblyn at 15:46 PM on 20 December 2016
       Ocean acidification isn't serious
       

       Andrew1776.
       
       Firstly, what field of science are you in, because from your comments it obviously isn't ocean chemistry.
       
       Next, pH itself isn't the primary consideration, that is just an indicator of the bigger issue which is the change of carbonate chemistry linked to changes in CO2 and pH and the flow on consequences for shell forming marine life that use calcium carbonate in forming their shells.
       
       If you haven't done so already I would recomend you read the intermediate level of this rebuttal, then follow that up by reading the OA is not OK series, linked from the side-bar on the upper left. Only then will you begin to know enough to understand how unihformed your comments are.
       
       Next, even in the hypotheal that we could change the pH in ways you suggest, it would seem naive to assume that this would then be beneficial. Marine organisms have evolved to live in a vastly complex chemical environment where pH is a contributing factor in a wide range of chemistry. Changes in pH may be positive or negative, that is a very open question.
       
       Additionally, making major changes in ocean pH requires major disturbances such as we are currently experiencing. Given sufficient time (this might be centuries to millenia) pH will return to previous levels. This is part of the complex chemistry you don't seem to know much about.

       So for example, this statement of your is simplistic

       "The pH of the ocean is directly related to the atmospheric CO2 concentration".
       
       Also to the concentration of boric acid in the ocean for example.
       
       So before making any further comments, might I suggest you get a lot more knowledge first. Then come back and revisit your comments.
       
       Because currently your last 2 paragraphs in your second post are violations of the comments policy here. Your apparent lack of knowledge may have led you to make them but the other insinuations of political bias etc are out of order. Nothing went wrong in 'climate science'. You are just commenting with insufficient knowledge. Go get some.

21934. Andrew1776 at 15:09 PM on 20 December 2016
       Ocean acidification isn't serious
       

       I'am a scientist, but not a climate scientist.  I don't understand why climate scientists don't ask and answer more unbiased questions.  For instance, regarding the pH of the ocean, shouldn't you be trying to figure out what the optimal pH of the ocean is.  A good scientist would ask questions like: What pH would create the most biodiversity?, or What pH would sustain the most food for humans?, or What pH would sustain the most total mass of ocean life?, or Which species would benefit most from a drop in pH?  

       This kind of unbiased science allows government policy makers to make informed decisions. We need all the facts on the table.  If the scientist starts with a political agenda in mind, he or she robs society of the opportunity to decide the policies that are best for society. The scientist becomes the judge, jury, and prosecution.  

       Scientists are supposed to be trained to avoid political bias in their research.  The peer review process is suppose to ferret out political bias. I'm not sure what happened with climatology, but the peer review process seems to have failed us in this particular field.

       Moderator Response:

       [GT]
       
       Violations of site policy blocked. Get some more knowledge before you throw around accusations. At present you just look a little foolish.

21935. Andrew1776 at 14:41 PM on 20 December 2016
       Ocean acidification isn't serious
       

       What is wrong with a lower pH? It seems to me it would be a good thing if we could increase our CO2 to 2000 ppm.  The ocean pH would probably drop to around 7.4, which is physiological conditions.  

       Seems to me that the catastrophic event has already happened. The catastrophe happened when the CO2 dropped to 180-280 ppm from 1000-4000 ppm, which was the concentration of CO2 when invertibrate life evolved on this earth.   

       The pH of the ocean is directly related to the atmospheric CO2 concentration. The pH was obviously at 7.4 when invertibrates evolved because our enzymes don't function at a different pH. Organisms have evolved to maintain a pH of 7.4 despite the fact that our environment no longer has that pH. Seems ridiculous to worry about restoring that pH. There may be a few organism that get outcompeted by the burst of biodiversity that would be almost certain to occur if we return to the non-hostile environment of 1,000-4,000 ppm CO2. 

       Moderator Response:

       [Rob P] - The rate of change seems to be the key issue. See here: Why were the ancient oceans favorable to marine life when atmospheric carbon dioxide was higher than today?

       The image below (also included in the linked blog post above) perfectly demonstrates how the actual experts have a far better handle on this than you. Both fossils date from ancient periods when atmospheric carbon dioxide was much higher than now, but only the fossil on the right lived in a time of ocean acidification. The geologically-rapid, but many times slower-than-present, increase in atmospheric CO₂ during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum drove carbonate undersaturation of the surface ocean.

        

21936. scaddenp at 13:25 PM on 20 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       Yes, the large grazers were birds, and I can see the soil microbiology might have evolved very differently with hooved grazers but I cant see the evolutionary driver that says such a system should be net carbon sink, and stay that way when you intensify farming. RedBaron has provided papers showing that indeed there are farms that are sequestering carbons well above enteric emissions though soil emission data is very sketchy in what I have found. Of course there are also studies which show SOC increase but not above soil + enteric emissions. What is representative? (The GHG inventories for each country dont appear to believe that grassland SOC is net absorber but then good grazing management is not practised everywhere either - factory farms for starters). Can farms demonstrating high SOC increase be replicated everywhere and provide a good mitigation strategy?  - or are there other issues at play which confound all the scientific effort over 40 years in NZ and Australia? I am hoping we havent found the right formula but understanding what is the difference is crucial. Hardly an idle question either. The payoff for our system in getting dairy to be net GHG sink is immense - CH4 is about 1/2 of our total GHG emissions.

21937. Tom Curtis at 12:44 PM on 20 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       scaddenp @183, perhaps one piece of the puzzle is that New Zealand, like Australia, has never had a native, large, hooved grazer, the existence of which is the premise of RedBaron's assumptions about what is natural.  Native New Zealand grasses are very unlikely to react to intensive grazing in the same way as those of the US prairie.  Mimicking a native grassland in New Zealand means getting rid of cattle and sheep altogether. 

21938. scaddenp at 12:05 PM on 20 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       Implicit in your statement above is the belief that a native grazed grassland will sequester carbon and at a rate above that of enteric emissions and one that doesnt is somehow wrong. This is clearly not necessarily a given as a naturally changing bioeme can transition from grassland to desert with changing climate. I will agree that a naturally developing soil will sequester carbon but not necessarily at a rate to also cover emissions from grazing animals. Once you increase the herd size to farming level intensities, then it is even less of given. Our native grasslands most certainly do not sequester carbon very quickly and grazing at even low intensities makes matter worse. Is it your bioeme that is abnormal?

       "The trick would be to figure out what piece of the puzzle is missing in that farm." Remember that this is hardly just this farm - maintaining SOC on grazing land here has been puzzle for a very long time with a lot intensive research. Figuring out the puzzle is very much an interesting question. So yes, I am very curious to know what the main species mix is in US native grasslands. Even a C3/C4 ratio would be interesting.

21939. RedBaron at 09:46 AM on 20 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       @scaddenp,

        First off to really get a handle on what I mean by "normal grassland" you must go back to who started the whole MIRG concept. That was Andre' Voisin.

       There have been a whole lot of improvements since then, but that's who really started the scientific method as it applies to rotational grazing.  Or as he called it "rational grazing". And the main principle that flows through all the various forms and versions that have been developed from his work is using a natural biome as a blueprint or framework in designing the artificial agricultural system. In agriculture of course we can select carefully species and genomes of plants and animals to optimise yields and productivity, but always in the back of your mind should be , "How does this mimick a native grassland in terms of ecosystem function?" This way we are much less likely to have failures in ecosystem function like the farm in your case study, regarding either CO2 sequestration and/or methane oxidation. If you get it right, you will observe big increases in yields along side radical reductions in inputs and increasing soil fertility every year (including significant carbon increases). Get it wrong and you might be able to maintain productivity only by increasing inputs.

       The trick would be to figure out what piece of the puzzle is missing in that farm. It could be legumes or other species of forbs. It could be the wrong blend of C3 to C4 grasses. It could be the wrong mix of soil biology whether worms, small arthropods, nematodes, insects and such or microbiology like AMF and/or saprophytic fungi, diazatrophs, methanotrophs, endophytes, other types of bacteria etc... Could be the fertilizer regime. Could be all or none of these. But what we can say for sure, that pasture is not functioning like any native grassland. That we can observe and has been observed in the case study.

       So if it was MY pasture, I would trial various changes with controls and just observe what happens. I would chose those changes based on my understanding of native grasslands which are typically far more productive than planted pastures all else equal. Where that pasture may have one or two species of grass, a native grassland might have 100 or more species of grasses and forbs. Eventually if I get the ecosystem function right, then the genetics should allow me to surpass a native grassland in productivity, because each new species I add will be selected with that in mind.

       Now in USA we typically don't have to do what you need to do there. The great plains region already has a huge dormant seed bank in the soils. The added species just "show up" one day as if by magic when conditions are right. We might add a few here and there, but generally we don't need to build a whole ecosystem from scratch like you Kiwis need to do. Even guys who started this literally on farms so degraded that bedrock was peeking through the surface still generally don't need to seed pastures, or add soil microbes. Some do to speed the process, but most have no need.

21940. Tom Curtis at 09:28 AM on 20 December 2016
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       I will briefly add that, were we to ignore complications and work back to a climate response based on the difference between Venus' and Earth's surface temperatures by the loglinear rule, we would estimate the climate response per doubling of CO2 to be 70^o K.  Obviously too large, for reasons given @317, but certainly not the basis for concluding that CO2 can have no significant effect on global temperatures (the conclusiong Jeff18 is angling for).  The 70^oK figure, like Jeff18's 0.08^oK temperature impact for 25% of current CO2 concentrations on Earth, are both examples of Garbage In, Garbage Out. 

21941. Glenn Tamblyn at 09:27 AM on 20 December 2016
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Jeff18.
       
       That isn't the way to calculate it.
       
       Here is how the greenhouse effect works.

       1. A planet tends towards being in radiative balance. It has to radiate as much energy as infrared to space as it absorbs from sunlight.
       2. Where this radiation to space originates from is determined by the quantity of GH gases. Where the amount of GH gases in the air column is higher, lower in the atmosphere, the air is optically thick. It is essentially opaque and absorbs virtually all the infrared passing through it. So any IR from below or IR radiated here by the atmosphere can't escape to space. Only at higher altitude, where the air grows thinner does it become possible for IR to start escaping to space. The air becomes optically thin. So all the radiation to space is originating from these higher altitudes, not the surface. GH gas concentrations determine how high this transition to optical thinness occurs at. Then radiative balance drives this altitude to be at the temperature required to achieve balance.
       3. In any atmosphere where vertical air movement occurs, there is a vertical temperature profile called the Lapse Rate. It gets colder as you go up, or conversely warmer as you go down. On Earth this figure is around 6.5 C for every kilometer of height.

       Putting these together, the balance temperature for Earth is-18C. The average altitude where the transition to optical thinness occurs is around 5 km up. So this level in the tmosphere tends towards -18C. Then the Lapse rate warms the air below and cools the air above this altitude. So the surface is at around -18 +(5 * 6.5) = +14.5 C. About right. And the 10 km level is at around -18 -(5 * 6.5) = -50.5 C About right.
       
       Lets do the math for Venus.
       
       With that super dense atmosphere its effective emission altitude is over 50 km up. Its balance temperature is actually lower than the Earth. Although it is closer to the Sun and receives twice as much sunlight, it is far more reflective. Earth reflects around 30% of the sunlight that strikes it and only absorbs 70%. The Bond Albedo of Venus is 0.9 so Venus only absorbs 10% of the sunlight that strikes it so only 2/7ths of what the Earth  absorbs. So its equilibrium temperature is actually more like -85 C
       
       And the Lapse Rate on Venus is around 10.2 C/km. It is this much higher because there is no condensation of water which lowers the Lapse Rate on Venus.
       
       So putting the numbers together -85 + (10.2 * 50+) gives over 425 C - about right.

21942. Tom Curtis at 09:15 AM on 20 December 2016
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Jeff18 @315, the temperature response to increased CO2 in the atmosphere approximates to a linear increase for each doubling of CO2.  Thus, you will get the same temperature response for increasing the CO2 concentration from 140 ppmv to 280 ppmv (ie, from half the industrial to the industrial concentration) as you would for increasing it from 280 to 560 ppmv.

       Clearly this relationship does not hold across all concentrations of CO2, for if it did, there would be an infinite temperature increase from 0 ppmv to any finite value.  Checking with modtran, the relationship holds from approximately from 16 to 4000 ppmv, ie, the full range of reasonable expectations of past and future CO2 concentrations on Earth - but it is not straighforwardly transferable to the situation on Venus.

        

       Further complicating things, temperature varies with the fourth root of energy, so that a linear increase in forcing (W/m^2) will be associated with a less than linear increase in temperature, particularly when there is not fluid H2O on the planet as with Venus.  Consequently no simple rule of thumb formula will give very accurate results for the effect in changes in CO2 concentration for Venus.  This is important because applying the loglinear (linear increase with each doubling) mentioned by Tristan as a best approximation would lead us to expect a surface temperature on Venus elevated by only 80^oK, which is far to small.  Better results can be obtained by using the formula that surface temperature equals the lapse rate times the effective altitude or radiation to space of IR radiation from the atmosphere, where that altitude is determined by radiation models of Venus' atmosphere.  Better still is the application of the full theory of the greenhouse in the form of climate models, which can predict with reasonable accuracy the actual surface temperature (and have done so since 1980).

       Finally, I suggest you read this post by Chris Colose, and that we conduct any further discussion on this in that thread (where it is on topic).

21943. scaddenp at 07:25 AM on 20 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       "not functioning like a normal grassland" is the core of issue for me. Which set of studies represent "normal". The abstract is maddening low on important detail as you say and will have to wait for full publication, but this study is showing better results than early ones  - it is "abnormal" for here and makes me suspicious that result is due to location and being on degraded soil. You can however safely assume that applied nitrogen will be urea with rates and timing determined from some reasonably sophisicated models, but these are for optimizing production/cost not SOC.

       Comprehensive studies of full GHG emissions (N2O, CH4 and CO2) from pasture plus SOC from MIRG in US have eluded me. Maybe it was in references you have given me already but obviously not in one that I saved.

       Just chatting with a grasslands ecologist who is in my building (not an agricultural scientist however but intrigued by the problem). He has asked if you could point us to a reference for the grass species commonly used in MIRG with good CO2 and CH4 uptake? (especially interested to know whether there are any C4 species involved).

21944. Tristan at 06:14 AM on 20 December 2016
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Hi Jeff

       The relationship between CO2 and temperature is not linear - it's loglinear. decreasing the atmospherice concentration of CO2 by 1% does not decrease the amount of energy reradiated back to the surface by 1%.

21945. william5331 at 05:29 AM on 20 December 2016
       On climate change, angels and demons are battling over Trump’s soul
       

       DeCaprio has the right approach.  Don't talk to Donald Trump about climate change.  Talk to him about all the job creation from installing and maintaining renewable energy.  Talk to him also about all that wealth flowing to the oil proucing countries that he could use for his works programs.  Point out that this money comes back into the USA to buy up American businesses who then have to pay dividends to the oil barrons.  More money flowing out of America.  Some goes into buying off terrorists who then use the funds to attack America.  Read the man and present the arguments he will understand and appriciate.

       http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2010/10/forget-climate-change.html

21946. william5331 at 04:47 AM on 20 December 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51
       

       If we are now makeing a strategic retreat and talking about living with climate change rather than (or in addition to) trying to stop it, we need a substitute for Glaciers.  We need something that will hold water during off-growing periods and release the water in the summer.  We need to hold the water on the land in order to recharge water tables rather than letting the water rush down to the sea. It would also be nice to catch silt from poor farming and poor land use and keep it where it will so some good in the future.  If in addition we can improve our ecology, that would be a bonus.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI5AjJd00cM

21947. Jeff18 at 04:13 AM on 20 December 2016
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       I have yet to find the answer to the following problem. Consider the atmosphere of Venus is almost 100% CO2. Not quite, but close enough. The surface temperature is about 800 degrees. Let's ignore for now the fact that Venus is closer to the sun which would make the effect of CO2 less. And also ignore that the atmospheric pressure is much higher than that of Earth. So, 100% CO2 would make the temperature 800 degrees warmer, 1% would make it 8 degrees warmer and .01% would make it .08 degrees warmer. The .01% number is roughly the increase in CO2 over older estimates. Now if we factor in that Venus is much closer to the sun and the atmosphere of Venus contains a whole lot more CO2, the .08 degree number would drop much more. It would seem by this method that the actual effect of CO2 is not large. I have sent this little story to various people and no seems to want to respond. Anyone?

21948. CBDunkerson at 23:50 PM on 19 December 2016
       Why Coal Is Not Our Future
       

       The problem of CO2 emissions >is< going to go away on its own... eventually.

       Indeed, that has always been the case. If nothing else, we will eventually run out of fossil fuels to burn.

       However, that does not mean that we can just kick back and wait for it to happen. Indeed, the whole point is that we need to deal with global warming before it gets to the point that it is self-correcting.

       Coal is obviously on its way out. It will not be a major component of electricity production anywhere in the world "decades" from now. However, how quickly we phase it out, to say nothing of oil and natural gas, is still very important.

21949. RedBaron at 23:00 PM on 19 December 2016
       How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
       

       @scaddencamp,

        Still troubling that synthetic fertilizers are used. Particularly nitrogen. I know how harsh that is on soil biology. But seeing as how I don't have a side by side compareson on that farm as a control to compare, it would be difficult to say for certain. I have never seen anyone optimize soil carbon either by the LCP or by methane oxidation where they used any haber process ammonia (NH3) or Ammonium (NH4) at all. Not only is it not needed and in the long run it reduces nitrogen availability, it also is quite harsh on soil biology, particularly earthworms. Considering their function in aerating the soil, it is potentially possible that's the problem. Other forms of nitrogen can have the opposite effect though and the link you presented doesn't say which was used.

       Obviously something is going on with that farm to explain why it is not functioning like a normal grassland. And reading the paper it seems even they were surprised at their own results,

       This is a somewhat puzzling result as the soils are well drained and CH4-producing microbes usually require oxygen-free conditions; however, similar observations have occurred in other intensively managed grasslands, grazed or harvested.

       considering how different they were from plenty of other peoples results on other pastures. But without controlls it is nearly impossible to pinpoint exactly where the problem lies.

       The study I already gave you says this:

       Mineral N applied annually as (NH4)2SO4, at either 96 or 144 kg N ha −1 for 130 years, completely inhibited CH4 oxidation, even where lime was applied to maintain a soil pH of about 6.[1]

       Which could also be an explanation, if that's the version of nitrogen they used.

21950. Chris O'Neill at 21:23 PM on 19 December 2016
       Why Coal Is Not Our Future
       

       "So no Prime Minister, it is unlikely that coal production and use for electricity generation in Australia will last for decades to come – maybe one decade but even that is questionable."

       This is fantastic news. The problem of CO2 emissions is going to go away on its own. No need for Carbon pricing or any type of government intervention to solve the problem. And closer to home, no need for websites like skepticalscience or realclimate to counter the influence of global warming/climate science denialists because there is no need for political action anymore.

       And if you believe that then you've never heard of Pollyanna and her statements reminiscent of the quote above.

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