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Comments 23751 to 23800:

23751. Ger at 23:47 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       @paraquat #4: Most EROEI are determined via a lifecycle analysis LCA, taking into account all emissions during the production. If one wants governement support this EROEI should be estimated with a LCA and must be positive. 

       For solid wood fuels the carbon footprint for pellets produced in a Vietnam from a mix of (all FSC approved, sustainable sources) sawdust, wood working residues and energy crop (actually materials used for paper&pulp but with the lower demand for paper now available for other uses), dried with fuels like bark, electricity generated from wood and agri-residues can have a footprint of less than 18 g/MJ and an EROEI of 7.5:1; Slightly better if one does produce bio-coal: EROEI 8.4:1 and a footprint of 14 g/MJ --Own calculations, checked with DECC calculator and according to the OpenLCA, using default provided data--.

       It does matter how the bio-coal/wood pellet is used: in a grate stoked boiler the amount of emissions is tripple the value per kWh delivered than used in a gasgenerator by gasifying and water shift+ CO2 capturing installation. 

       Germany is not importing that much wood from the USA, it's a German company owning plants in England, Netherlands and Belgium (and a pellet plant in the USA) which take the bulk of the pellets from USA & Canada. England (Drax) takes  3 million tpa, Netherlands (till 2020) 1.4 million tons and Belgium a 2.2 million tons from USA& Canada. East European countries, Portugal, Germany,Austria, Sweden do have large areals of wood, good for a 10 million tons a year, mainly for household and small boiler use. 

       Corn ethanol has EROEI 1.3:1, cellulosic ethanol EROEI of 2.2:1 and would be much better if the lignin was reused seriously in a high efficiency power train instead of using medium pressure steam generators. 

23752. Paraquat at 15:58 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       Hello One Planet Only Forever,

       I understand your point, but you've got to consider something called EROEI (energy returned on energy invested), also known as EROI (energy return on investment). You probably already know what that is since the name is self-explanatory, but anyway, it means you need to expend some energy to get energy. An EROI of 1:1 is useless since you're expending as much energy as you produce, a net gain of zero. If EROI is negative, it's worse than useless.

       A lot of green technologies looks worse when you consider EROI, but for the moment let's just consider biofuels. In the case of burning wood, Germany's greens prefer not to include the energy expended in harvesting the wood (usually in North Carolina), processing it into pellets and shipping it across the ocean to Germany. That energy is almost entirely fossil-fuel based. Furthermore, you should add in the loss of CO2 absorbing ability of a forest that is taken out of production for 20 years or so until it grows back. And then there is the loss of topsoil due to erosion, which is hard to calculate.

       It's even worse with ethanol, another biofuel that - among other sins - reduces the gas mileage of vehicles that burn it, which worsens its already poor EROI.

       I could say some bad things about other "solutions" like natural gas, and even solar and wind have some serious issues. But I don't like to lump too many topics into one, so I'll save that for another post.

       cheers,

       Paraquat

23753. One Planet Only Forever at 14:21 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       To complete my point@2:

       Selective harvesting of mature trees that would naturally be near to their days of decomposing would be the best way of harvesting trees for burning. Those trees are nearly done taking in carbon, and close to decomposing creating CO2.

       That is where the trouble-making current day priority on maximizing short-term profit for the benefit of a portion of the global population gets in the way.

       The real problem is not burning wood. The real problem is the way the burning of wood develops in a socio-economic system that misguidedly prioritizes profit and popular desires (and the freedom of people to do as they please) rather than focusing effort on actions that will genuinely advance humanity to a lasting better future.

23754. One Planet Only Forever at 14:04 PM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       Paraquat@1,

       Burning coal digs up carbon that had been locked out of the recycling environment of our planet and adds it into that environment as excess CO2.

       Burning biomass also produces CO2. But it is carbon that is already in the recycling/living environment. So wood burning is better than coal burning, especially if an amount of wood is being regrown that matches the amount being burned.

23755. Paraquat at 11:49 AM on 13 July 2016
       Why Paris climate pledges need to overdeliver to keep warming to 2C
       

       The "Paris Agreement" looks very good on paper, but it means nearly nothing since it's no more than a declaration of intent. It doesn't spell out any plan to actually achieve its goals of reducing CO2 emissions.

       Since the "agreement" was reached, there has been nearly no progress on the ground. I would argue that in the past few years there have been some major steps backwards, in particular the buring of "biomass" which is basically wood chips that are about as dirty as coal. The latter gets very little notice, even though at this time Germany is producing about 1/3 of its "green energy" by burning wood.

       I am not an AGW deniers, so for those of you who haven't dismissed me as a mental case, I'd like to refer you to this article. Please take a few minutes to read it so you know what I'm talking about:

       Pulp Fiction: The European Accounting Error That's Warming the Planet

       http://reports.climatecentral.org/pulp-fiction/1/

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link. Please use the link tool in the editor to do this yourself.

23756. jmcookie at 11:42 AM on 13 July 2016
       Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
       

       I've been following the climate change issue for some time and although This petition does not hide their academic degree list of signatories or their fundamental argument against AGW. They do have peer reviewed research papers giving details if anyone that reads this site is actually interested. I'm not a climate scientist I watch a lot of the skeptics like Dr Roy Spencer and John Christy who seem very well informed. I've never watched a NASA climate scientist speak out so I checked and I found that NASA is a executive government agency and the climate scientists are told to NOT discuss their views publicly (so we actually don't know how many NASA scientists are skeptics). I've also watched a lot of deceit and data manipulation from major players like IPCC (Climategate) and NAOO (2015 data manipulation). I’ve read these reports and I think all this is common knowledge as these events are in Wikipedia if references are necessary.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Perhaps try expanding your reading somewhat (here is a good place) and showing some real skepticism (ie critically examine your anti-AGW sources as well as published science).

       Your statement contains numerous errors. Please see the Intermediate version.

23757. Bob Loblaw at 10:47 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       Alexandre:

       I really don't think it's much of a problem....

       

23758. Alexandre at 00:55 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       I think we should start preparing a new rebuttal to the next skeptical argument: Global warming stopped in 2016. Sigh...

23759. swampfoxh at 00:49 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       It seems that we spend some valuable time proving the proofs.  On the one hand we can change baselines and thus change the outcome (only somewhat), but we already know the Larsen A & B are gone and the "C" is in trouble, we know Greenland is in trouble and we know that because ice melts when it get warm.  So, irrespective of the deniers denial we have a climate problem called "warming" instead of a climate problem called "cooling", so let's just go on and stop proving our proofs.  What say?

23760. Kevin C at 00:04 AM on 13 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       chriskoz: It's arbitrarily dependent on the baseline.

       Here's a recent version (from the SI of Richardson et al 2016). The blue is the correct comparison:

       

       That doesn't include 2016, which will be hotter. The series are aligned on 1861-1880 for comparison to a previous work. But you can shift the observations up or down relative to the models by picking a different baseline.

23761. chriskoz at 22:36 PM on 12 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       It's time now to update the comparison of HADCRUT data vs. CIMP5 models, that was done pre-super ElNino 2015-16. For example this article from 2y ago found good agreement between updated models in Schmidt et al (2014) and Cowtan-Way updated temp set. But the models were still running slightly below observations.

       Are CIMP5 model still running below, 2years since that discussion? Or maybe above now? Everyone seems to br silent on it. The silence of "skeptics" (i.e. deniers) does not surprise me: they are vocal only when they see the confirmation of their pre-conceived opinions. But the silence of the scientists puzzles me. Showing last two years data (perhaps add this year's prediction) on top of latest Gavin's model would be a very simple debunking of preponderous "global warming has stopped" & "models are unreliable" memes.

23762. BC at 16:56 PM on 12 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       In Australia we have just elected the right wing coalition government (sometimes called coal-ition) under Malcolm Turnbull who scraped in with a majority of 1. So we have the party with the least ambitious targets for emissions reductions (26-28% by 2030) when what we really need are the most ambitious targets and action to suit. In the election they didn’t even present a renewable energy target beyond the existing 23% by 2020, whereas the main opposition party had a target of 50% by 2030.
       However there is one positive with Turnbull compared to the previous Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Abbott has said in an interview ‘climate change is crap’ (admittedly a few years ago) and when he agreed to the above targets for Paris you had the feeling that he would then pretty much ignore them and continue with his support for fossil fuels (“coal is good for humanity” being his most famous quote). The good thing with Turnbull is it is clear that he believes in action on climate change. He has said (in 2010) "We can move, as we must move if we are to effectively combat climate change, to a situation where all or almost all of our energy comes from zero or very near zero emission sources." Abbott was extremely unpopular and was rolled by Turnbull in late 2015, just before Paris. A condition placed on Turnbull to get support within the party was that he not change the Paris targets or other (weak) climate changes policies. At least with Turnbull you have the feeling (or hope) that he will push for those targets to actually be achieved.
       Here is a link to a 30 sec video of Turnbull making the above statement. It was back in 2010, when he launched Beyond Zero Emissions' plan for 100% renewable stationary energy.

       Turnbull supporting climate action

        

       (note: on this page, scroll down to access the video)

23763. DrivingBy at 14:57 PM on 12 July 2016
       We just broke the record for hottest year, nine straight times
       

       Well, the graph goes down from 1879 to 1920, and 1943 to 1980, and sorta kinda if you squint from 1998 to 2012. Who knows, it could start going down any minute now!  

       Which is my way of saying  'don't waste your breath with deniers on blog comments'. If someone wishes to believe up is down, no rational argument will change that wish. 

23764. Tom Curtis at 11:08 AM on 11 July 2016
       It's albedo
       

       My apologies.  @65, I failed to account for the roundness of the Earth, so that total insolation should be divided by 4, and the percentage terms multiplied by 4.  That still requires only 0.132% of the Earth's surface to be covered in solar cells to entirely supply human energy needs at 5% efficiency, and a 0.132% change in albedo.  That represents a maximum forcing of 0.45 W/m^2 easily compensated by other means as noted in my final paragraph.

23765. Tom Curtis at 09:45 AM on 11 July 2016
       It's albedo
       

       JimmyJames @64, yes I do.  Better than that, I quantify.

       In 2012, global primary energy supply was 71,013 terawatt hours, or 2.56 x 10^20 Joules.  Total insolation after albedo was 153218.46 x 10^20 Joules, so total primary energy supply was just 0.0017% of the energy the Earth recieves from the Sun.  Put another way, at 5% efficiency, we would need to cover just 0.033% of the Earth with solar cells to completely power our civilization.  With a maximum albedo loss of 1, that represents a change in albedo of just 0.033% - ie, completely negligible.

       To put that figure in context, that is significantly less than the area currently covered by roads.

       Of course, if it should ever be a problem, we could just cover a compensating area with a high albedo surface (like concrete, or sand) to prevent any net change in albedo.

23766. JimmyJames916 at 09:22 AM on 11 July 2016
       It's albedo
       

       There is alot more happening with the earth then just some global warming that is the least of the worries i carry around in my head, if we are trying to reflect the suns radiation and solar energy then why are we absorbing it with solar panels more then ever in the last 10 years Solar Panels might be a very bad thing if they are worried about how much we are reflecting MAN worry more about how much we are absobing   YOU THINK  :) 

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Please read the comments policy. no all-caps.

       Note your point is discussed here though I havent checked the figures.

23767. nigelj at 09:05 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       Trakar @ 3

       This web sites comments policy says basically "no politics", as this is presumably to avoid technical issues descending into rants about ideology or politics, and this is good policy. However we have to use a bit of commonsense. I take the approach that if the article is political in nature, (like the attacks on science article)  then obviously at that point it's ok to post political responses, provided they are measured comments and not a rant or inflammatory. We are not living in a vacuum.

       The reason for articles on republican and democrat attitudes to climate change is probably because ultimately only legislation can really deal with the climate problem. Regional and individual initiative is also important, but unlikely to be sufficient. It's pretty obvious this website supports mitigation through some sort of legislative action, and they are entitled to that view. I have read one or two articles on regional and individual initiatives, so I think the website is reasonably balanced. Of course more articles like that would be interesting and useful.

       And lets face facts, republicans and democrats are poles apart on climate change. The republicans are pretty much in denial about climate change as a whole. This appears to be widespread within their party and almost an article of faith.

       The democrats accept theres a problem, and I do agree they are not particularly strong on solutions or have some internal divisions. However the parties are fundamentally pretty different, and there is little nuance or grey area between the parties as a whole, so articles do tend to reflect this.

23768. Tom Curtis at 08:15 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       Trakar, of the articles listed above, I only find one that directly addresses US policies.  That article applauds Hilary Clinton for adopting a more ambitious policy than Barak Obama (something that is not obvious to me), but strongly criticizes her for not pursuing a price on carbon.  The ony positive point made for Clinton's policy in that regard is that it avoids the need for congressional approval.

       With regard to that, an early June vote by the House of Representatives to condemn carbon taxes shows the nature of the barrier.  The vote was 237-163 against carbon taxes, with just six Democrats voting with the majority, and no Republicans voting with the minority.  Given that currently Republicans hold 246 to the Democrats 188 seats, even if all Democrats had voted against the resolution, they could not have voted down the 231 Repubiclans who voted for it.  From that we can determine that of the 188 Democrats, 86.7% voted against the resolution, 10.1% abstained (or were absent), and only 3.2% voted against the measure.  Of the 246 Republicans, 93.9% voted against the measure, while 6.1% abstained (or were absent).   Those numbers refute categorically your claim that "the largest obstacle for climatehawk Democratic law-makers and activists come from the centrist (right-leaning) fiscally conservative, socially liberal subsection of the party focussed in the NE and DC metropolitan corridors, not the party on the other side of the aisle".

23769. Trakar at 05:24 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       My "thumbs up" was for your response, not my post.

       I am just concerned that with many of the largely approving tone to some of the Democratic candidate articles being posted, where the candidates are proposing half-step, drag your feet proposals that won't even majorly slow national anthropogenic emissions, much less global emissions. We run the risk of fooling those whose understanding and interest in climate change, that SKS supports the idea that one Political Party is composed of "All-in Climate Hawks" while the other party is made up of evil "Deniers." Truthfully, there is much more nuance and mixture within both parties. In fact, the largest obstacle for climatehawk Democratic law-makers and activists come from the centrist (right-leaning) fiscally conservative, socially liberal subsection of the party focussed in the NE and DC metropolitan corridors, not the party on the other side of the aisle. More to the point, replacing centerist (left-leaning) fiscally moderate, socially conservative Republican law makers, with more of the fiscally conservative socially liberal Democratic law makers is a net-zero gain for addressing climate change issues.

       We need to be more about building and featuring articles about local and regional climate activists/movements and public climate policy leaders regardless of party, and less time promoting articles about the differences between national party and political figures who are unlikely to be able, or willing, to act significantly and substantively to address climate change issues.   

       Democratic leaders deserve no less coverage regarding their half-stepping and foot-dragging than Republican leaders regardless of their lip service toward or against climate science and the issues that face our planet's inhabitants.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] SkS, founded by an Australian, is international in scope and following. Each day, I sift and winnow through a variety of sources for informative articles from throughout the world for posting links to on the SkS Facebook page. I post the links at three hour intervals 24/7. That's the best I can do given the amount of time that I am able to devote to SkS matters.  

       [PS]

       [PS] The comments policy prohibition on politics is largely there to prevent threads descending into political/ideological arguments with little or no science. There are plenty of other sites where robust political discussion (preferably with people from the same country) are welcome.

       However, one point is well-made. It is my belief, (and I am a moderator, not owner of the site) that no endorsement of any party in any country is intended. Calling out politicians of any persuasion for promoting climate myths is however very much fair game. Dont be surprised however if commentators who rate climate action highly prefer parties whose platform position is to mitigate climate change over other parties who deny there is a problem to solve.

       Sks is also not really a climate activist site so much as a resource for debunking climate myths. Other sites do activism better.

23770. Trakar at 04:28 AM on 11 July 2016
       New research: climate may be more sensitive and situation more dire
       

       The issues in this article, along with equilibrium observed over a compressed time cycle may be responsible for much of the difference between paleoclimate approximations of sensitivity and modern estimations. I've always tended toward the post-diction estimates of paleoclimate research for this issue and assumed that the differences between the values they indicate and modern assessments to be primarily the result of things we either haven't yet understood (properly or entirely - to include aerosols/clouds and various other known and unknown feedback systems).

23771. Trakar at 03:12 AM on 11 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       If we aren't allowed to discuss politics, shouldn't the articles about the lies and half-step climate shuffles politicians of all parties are telling to voters be eliminated, or at the least exposed for the inadequacies they represent?  Currently this only seems to being done on a partisan basis which leads to the impression that only one party is inadequate in addressing the issue of climate change seriously. We here, know that this is at best, a half truth implied disingenuously.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Given the myriad of topics addressed in this weekly listeing of 50 plus articles, the comment threads for Weekly News Roundups are considered to be "open threads." If you wish to discuss politics related to climate change on this thread, you are welcome to do so — as long as your comments comport to the SkS Comments Policy. 

23772. ubrew12 at 02:33 AM on 11 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       Michael Mann estimates that cessation of coal burning would cause sulphate aerosols to rain out within a few years, and global temperature to increase by about 0.5 C.  If these aerosols were speaking Chinese and 'goosed' the PDO into a negative phase for 15 years, its possible the increase would be 0.1 C or so higher than that.

23773. Ian Forrester at 01:02 AM on 11 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       BBHY, the year 1998 was chosen because that is the cherry picked starting point for the deniers to claim "no warming for xxxx months". This paper shows that there has been warmng since that date, all be it at a lower rate due to increased arerosols.

23774. Tom Curtis at 09:10 AM on 10 July 2016
       2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28
       

       Here is one from today at the ABC:

       "'Shocking images' reveal death of 10,000 hectares of mangroves across Northern Australia

       By the National Reporting Team's Kate Wild

       

        

       Close to 10,000 hectares of mangroves have died across a stretch of coastline reaching from Queensland to the Northern Territory.

       Key points:

       A mangrove expert says it is the most extreme "dieback" he has ever seen
       The mangrove death occurred across a 700km stretch of NT and QLD
       An expert believes it is linked to climate change
       International mangroves expert Dr Norm Duke said he had no doubt the "dieback" was related to climate change.

       "It's a world-first in terms of the scale of mangrove that have died," he told the ABC.

       ..."

       The link to climate change is a probable cause in either a short wet season and/or very high sea surface temperatures which are related to the recent El Nino, but which have been significantly enhanced in strength due to global warming.  Sufficiently so that the SSTs are unprecedented, as is the dieback.

       No doubt this will result in the usual argument as to how do you attribute events to climate change.  One method takes the total AGW warming todate as a percentage of the SST anomaly - a method that will attribute less than 50% of the event to AGW.  That method misses the point, however, that the probability of such a warm SST absent AGW is very slight.  Without doing the maths I cannot say how slight.  The attribution, however, would then be based in the difference between the probability of such an event absent AGW, and the probability with AGW.  In the case of unprecedented events such as this, that is by far the more informative method (although both methods are valid, but measure different things).

23775. william5331 at 08:06 AM on 10 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       It is inevitable that as the Chinese population becomes more wealthy and more influential in the politics of China that they will insist on a clean up.  The Technology already exists to remove particulates and sulphur compounds from Coal fired stacks and this could happen very rapidly.  America had to do it and it took very little time once the political decision had been made.  In addition, China is the world leader in the uptake of renewable energy.  We will, very soon, witness the result of this experiment of drastically cutting the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere.

23776. BBHY at 19:08 PM on 9 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       "In its latest report, the IPCC calculated (pdf) that global surface temperatures between 1998 and 2012..."

       You lost me right there. Using 1998 as a starting point is the ulrimate in cherry picking. Did they get the same result using 1997 or 1999 as the starting poiint? No? Then the whole thing is completely useless, IMHO. 

23777. scaddenp at 18:40 PM on 9 July 2016
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       

       mr_alanng - I think it would by a lot simpler to just get off using fossil fuels rather than trying to sequester CO2. Also, while methane is an issue, it is less than 30% of total forcing from CO2 because the emissions are far smaller.

       " Some researchs said that cow milk is not for human."

       I dont think any food is "for human" except breast milk but evolution has equipped us to use it. The gene for lactase persistance is highly selected for since the paleolithic particularly in european populations. Ie once you had settled agricultural, humans with lactase persistance survived and bred better than those without.

23778. ubrew12 at 05:43 AM on 9 July 2016
       Climate scientists are under attack from frivolous lawsuits
       

       Mother: "What did you learn in school today, Exxon?"  "Today we learned all about the First Amendment!"  "And what about the First Amendment did you learn?"  "We learned that exercising our Free Speech means paying others to sift through decades of emails of Climate Scientists, cherry-picking discriminating information, and releasing it to a soundbite-conditioned public to take out of context, thereby clouding that Science by ruining the public reputations of its practitioners, and warning young Scientists to pick another subject ... or else!"

23779. Rolf Jander at 02:42 AM on 9 July 2016
       Aerosol emissions key to the surface warming ‘slowdown’, study says
       

       So during the period between 1940 and 1970, poloution was enough to temporarily cancell out the warming effect of our co2 output. If this research is acurate. now even the massive poloution put out by China and the fires in Indonesia could only slow it down.

23780. mr_alanng at 18:58 PM on 8 July 2016
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       

       Everyone on the world needs to glow at least 10 tree in his/her life. Assume only half of population can grow the trees for some reasons. The current population is 7.4 billions. Then we have 3.7 billions of people grow the trees, eventually, we have more 37 billions of tree. Each big trees can absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year. Each year, 370 billions of carbon dioxide will be absorbed by trees. And we have schedule to control the tree, say to cut away the old trees, to collect the wood (solid carbon oxide) as recycle, reusable materials. The next thing we need to do is to get rid the dairy farm. As we know, the green effect of the methane is 12 times of CO2. A dairy cow can produce 110kg CH4 a year. Some researchs said that cow milk is not for human. Some countries not rely on the cow milk. I think these two method can improve the green house effect.

23781. Tom Curtis at 06:20 AM on 8 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       MA Rodger @26, thankyou for the correction.

       Redoing the calculation using CH4 concentrations expressed in part per billion (ppb) rather than ppm, ie, the typical unit used to express CH4 concentrations, I obtain a forcing of  0.576 W/m^2, with the remainder of the difference being due to my leaving of the NO2 correction.  Clearly the units used is critical in this equation. 

23782. Dipper at 02:29 AM on 8 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       Sincere thanks to HK, Tom Curtis and MA Rodger for responding so quickly and thoroughly. Lots of stuff for me to go and read up on. My simple calculations clearly not what is needed. Much appreciated!

23783. MA Rodger at 00:36 AM on 8 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       Tom Curtis @25,

       That CH4 forcing cannot be right.

       Rather than test my own arthmetical skills, there is a year-by-year table 1979-to-date for the various GHG forcings is given by ESRL on that very page you link to. For 2015, CO2=1.939 Wm^-2 & CH4=0.504 Wm^-2.

       Mind, the global temperature increase since pre-industrial times (I assume this is Dipper's "excess heating we experience this year") results from the whole bucket of GHGs. If the analysis includes them all, CO2 & CH4 are only 82%. And if we are to consider that forcings of past emissions continue to operate, different GHGs have quite different concentrations histories.

       So, Dipper @23.

       How sophisticated do you want to get?

23784. Tom Curtis at 23:43 PM on 7 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       Dipper @23, the Global Warming Potential is defined by the IPCC as follows:

       "Global Warming Potential (GWP) An index, based on radiative
       properties of greenhouse gases, measuring the radiative forcing following
       a pulse emission of a unit mass of a given greenhouse gas in the presentday
       atmosphere integrated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of
       carbon dioxide. The GWP represents the combined effect of the differing
       times these gases remain in the atmosphere and their relative effectiveness
       in causing radiative forcing. The Kyoto Protocol is based on GWPs
       from pulse emissions over a 100-year time frame."

       You will notice that, first, the GWP is a function of mass, not volume (as pointed out by HK @24); and, second, that it is a function of emitted mass, not atmospheric concentration.  

       If you want to calculate the relative effect from atmospheric concentrations, you just use the formula for radiative forcing.

       Thus, for CO2, the formula is 5.35 x ln(C/C_o), which for the values you give is 1.82 W/m^2.

       For Methane, the formula is ΔF = 0.036(M^½ - M_o^½) - [f(M,N_o) - f(M_o,N_o)]

       where f(M,N) = 0.47ln[1 + 2.01x10^-5 (MN)^0.75 + 5.31x10^-15M(MN)^1.52] and M stands for a Methane concentration, and N stands for a Nitrogen Oxide concentration.

       Ignoring the Nitrous Oxide adjustment, and using your figures, this yields Methane forcing of 0.02 W/m^2, or 1/91st of the forcing due to CO2.  There is a further, small adjustment due to the relative effectiveness of different forcings but it does not bridge the gulf in the relative impacts between the two.  The result is that, per unit concentration, methane is approximately 12% more effective at warming than CO2 at near current cocentrations, but the significantly larger increase in CO2 concentration means that CO2 is the primary warmer.

23785. HK at 22:53 PM on 7 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       @23 Dipper:
       Your math seems to be correct!

       I think the problem is that the warming potential for CO₂ vs. methane compares units of mass while your calculation compares units of volume.
       CO₂ is 2.75 times heavier per molecule (or ppm) than methane, so the numbers for methane have to be divided by that if you are comparing the climate impact from each on a ppm basis.

       Doing that, you get these results for methane vs. CO₂:
       100 years: 28 / 2.75= 10.2
       20 years: 84 / 2.75 = 30.5
       Instantly: 110 / 2.75 = 40

       And from pre-industrial to 2011:
       CO2: 113
       Methane: 121 / 2.75 = 44

       This figure shows the annual growth of forcings from the well-mixed greenhouse gases after 1950. Since the late 1990s the contribution from non-CO₂ has only been about 20-25 %, but that fraction was up to 50 % until the early 1990s. Note that the methane forcing nearly stabilized in the early 2000s, but has started to increase again.

       

23786. Dipper at 20:06 PM on 7 July 2016
       It's methane
       

       I've done some calculations and got to the following point and would like someone please to tell me where I've gone wrong.

       My question is "what are the relative contributions of greenhouse gases to the excess heating we experience this year?"

       Firstly, for excess we need to take the difference from pre-industrial levels, so CO2 is (2011 levels) 391 - 278 = 113 ppm and for methane is 1.803 - 0.7 = 1.103 ppm.

       Second is the rel warmoing potential which for CO2 is 1 and for methane over a 100 year period is 28. But that 28 is because methane progressively breaks down in to CO2 so for the last 50 years or so most of the methane has disappeared. To calculate the warming potential of methane right now I took the 100 year number, the 20 year number of 84, took logs and extrapolated back to 0 to get a native number of 110.

       so

       contribution from CO2 = 113 x 1 = 113

       contribution from CH4 = 1.103 x 110 = 121

       Hence the extra warming generated this year comes slightly more from methane than from CO2.

       I've tried to work out what is wrong with this but have failed. Can anyone help?

        

       thanks

23787. José M. Sousa at 02:59 AM on 7 July 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       As I said above, the EU is not that better - if at all - than UK concerning climate change:

       Commission and Big Energy keep cooking the climate, despite Paris Agreement

       http://corporateeurope.org/climate-and-energy/2016/06/commission-and-big-energy-keep-cooking-climate-despite-paris-agreement

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link.

23788. denisaf at 21:44 PM on 6 July 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Climate change is an irreversible natural process brought on by the emisssion of greenhouse gases by technical systems. It is the unintended conseqence of lack of understanding of natural processes b those making the decisions. Most people do not understand that fundamental physical reality. This discussion only deals with how peole have responded to two issues that are only related in the views of people. it leads to misunderstanding about what should be done to cope with the irreversible climate change. The most that can be done is to reduce the rate of greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as is physically possible. That requires the powerful in society acquiring understanding they have yet to exhibit.

23789. bozzza at 18:27 PM on 6 July 2016
       After 6 years of working on climate at Harvard, I implore it to show the courage to divest
       

       We all have the power to implore...

23790. chriskoz at 16:36 PM on 6 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

       Tom@13,

       Your video without comment does not adhere to the comment policy (no link only posts) although it's self explanatory, with almost 100% of it very much on topic here.

       It's worth noticing that in it, John Oliver provides extensive critique of a distorted image of science not just by media but also by politicians. Remarkable is John's assertion at 8:00-8:20:

       No shit ... This is science and not the US senate.

23791. chriskoz at 16:22 PM on 6 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

       "If you care about attacks on climate science and the rise of authoritarianism [you should read that book]"

       This, parallel to the war on science issue, is only mentioned but disapointingly, not explained by John in this article. What is it about? Perhaps related to the "Trump phenomenon" as we discussed in another thread? Anyone knows more about the book to reveal its take on "authoritarianism"?

23792. scaddenp at 09:24 AM on 6 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

       I also very much like that video!

       "Post modernism is possibly an outgrowth of extreme liberalism".  Or is liberalism in your sense of the word an outgrowth of post-modernism? Post-modernism is a many-faceted cultural phenomenum with extremely complex origins and development. Distinquishing cause from effect is difficult and probably not productive.

       However, it is the cultural reality we find ourselves in, and one in which we still have to find a way to make scientific communication effective. The Oliver video shows how broken some of that is but also I think accurately identifies the cause - most of us are lazy media browsers and we get the media we deserve.

23793. nigelj at 09:00 AM on 6 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

       Scaddenp @ 12

       I can definitely go along with all that. I broadly trust the science community, and it mystifies me how people become so distrustful. I'm not naive. I realise science is a work in progress and sometimes gets it wrong, but its vastly preferable to anything else, and far more rigorous.

       I even sometimes get annoyed when science does not give results I was expecting, or threatens my own belief system, but I tend to mainly adjust my belief system, I dont end up with a deep misstrust of scientists. 

       Post modernism is possibly an outgrowth of extreme liberalism that seeks to legitimise individualism and tolerance of widely divergent viewpoints. Maybe it has gone too far at times.

       Looking at the video in the Tom Curtis link, the media have often drawn the wrong conclusions about research and over simplified things or exaggerated things, presumably to grab peoples attention. This is very unfortunate and irresponsible.  Real scientific conclusions are often nuanced, and that is what the media should be honest about. They can still portray science in a colourful way, without so blatantly distorting the findings. The mass media have confused issues, and thus hurt the reputation of science. The video was spot on and very amusing.

23794. Tom Curtis at 13:20 PM on 5 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

23795. scaddenp at 11:46 AM on 5 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

       I dont think it is a case of "hate science". For the myriad of reasons you mention, they perceive that science gets the "wrong answer", therefore they mistrust science and/or scientists. When there is a perception that acceptance of science results is undermining their values, then the antagonism goes deeper than mistrust.  Time to shoot the messenger by defunding or whatever. I would say some of this is definitely a deep misunderstanding of science and scientists work (some classic examples of projection out there in denierland), but it is also a fact of post-modernism where there is no one way to apprehend to truth. Whatever route someone used to get the "right answer" is seen as just as valid as science. Like it or not, post-modernism permeates our cultural understanding.

23796. nigelj at 11:30 AM on 5 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

       Scaddenp @10

       You seem to be saying some people just hate science, all science. Maybe you are right, but there has to be a reason.

       It could be because of specific ideological reasons like religion (Im not suggesting here all religious people hate science), or that they have massive vested interests in something like fossil fuels that takes over their entire attitude to science.

       It could be related to conservative beliefs. There is some polling / research that suggests conservatives are not hugely comfortable with science. This suggests a deep cause.

       Or is it because some people just aren't very good at science? So they are just dismissive of science, unless it happens to generate something they like.

       Personally I think there are probably millions of different reasons for the war on science, reflecting the millions of individuals who are so engaged in this war. I doubt there is one root cause.

23797. Mike Hillis at 11:21 AM on 5 July 2016
       Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
       

       Glenn @202

       
       From your charts there is still plenty of water vapor above Mauna Kea, which doesn't surprise me because of the tropical latitude. The

       Tokunaga charts

       don't resemble the polar charts much in the water vapor Q-band (15-23 um), but they also don't resemble sea level tropical transmittiance charts. From Mauna Kea the Q band transmittance stays around 50% up to 28 um.

23798. scaddenp at 07:54 AM on 5 July 2016
       The War on Science will change how you see the world
       

       OPOF - what you are describing fits my definition of War on Science. You say "They love science that will benefit them" - but they dont. They love the results. It could be created by witchcraft or religious incantations for all they care. That is very different from an attitude to the discipline itself.

23799. APT at 06:00 AM on 5 July 2016
       The inter-generational theft of Brexit and climate change
       

       Leave voters can put forward all the excuses they want, but whatever their age and whatever their reasons (and even the best arguments I've seen for leaving the EU suggest a tendency towards isolationism rather than working together to solve problems), they voted for a campaign based on anti-intellectualism, and on racist and xenophobic lies. This is the important point, and it's inexcusable in my view. It has done untold damage whether the UK leaves the EU or not.

23800. braintic at 23:29 PM on 4 July 2016
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       

       There has certainly not been a pause in US temperatures.

       Considering 1995-99 as the base (zero) period:

       The period 2000 to 2009 was 0.16 degrees C above zero.

       The period 2010 to May 2015 is 0.33 degrees C above zero.

       See this video showing how the changes from the 1990s to the 2000s were distributed across the US:

       US Temperature Comparison 2000s vs 1990s

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