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Comments 26201 to 26250:

  1. Satellites show no warming in the troposphere

    Even Roy Spencer now admits that satellite "measurements" of tropospheric temperature cannot and must not be used as proxies for surface temperature measurements, due to major unresolved issues in the assumptions used in the complex conversions of the microwave measurements into estimates of temperatures. (Spencer is one of the two main people responsible for the "UAH" satellite-based troposphere temperature estimations.)

  2. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    TomC wrote: "they would rather destroy the world than be fair"

    Nicely put, and sadly, all too true.

  3. Wind energy is a key climate change solution

    Congratulations to Professor John Abraham for being nominated for teacher of the year at St. Thomas U.

    www.stthomas.edu/news/professor-year-finalists-announced/

  4. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @scaddenp

    You said, " I am intrigued. How does undergrazing lead to desert?"

    You are right, it is a water thing, but once again you need to take that reductionism and put it back together as part of a whole. It is water, but water in the soil. Water infiltration rates and holding capacity of the soil is dependant on SOM and cover. The brush and scrub that succeeds after undergrazing in dry brittle environments leads to bare soil and losses of SOM, which starts a downward spiral of increased runoff and erosion, more rapid evaporation, ultimately to desertification just like overgrazing does.

    The important part to this thread being SOM is carbon and we have far too much in the atmosphere and worldwide far too little in the soil.

  5. Wind energy is a key climate change solution

    The problem with wind is that it is not a fixed entity.  In California, I've seen plots of wind output, and it is very dirunal, particularly in the Summer:

    https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/the-daily-cycle-of-wind-power-in-california/

    This means that other base load plants where need to reduce power in the evening and ramp up during the day.  I know that nuclear plants in this country were not designed with this king of daily cycle in mind.  At a minimum California also needs large amounts of other renewables to even out the wind cycle.  Solar might fit the bill  because its output will be stronger in the middle of the day when the wind tapers off, but not every geographic location is the same in this respect.

  6. Wind energy is a key climate change solution

    From the linked report: "Wind PPA prices have reached all-time lows. After topping out at nearly $70/MWh for PPAs executed in 2009, the national average levelized price of wind PPAs that were signed in 2014 (and that are within the Berkeley Lab sample) fell to around $23.5/MWh nationwide—a new low..."

    The brief increase in wind power costs from ~2001 to 2009 does not change the overall sharply downward trend of the past 40 years... or the fact that current costs are the lowest ever... and still dropping. Wind costs less today than it did 15 years ago. The technology is still improving. Your cited 'evidence' contradicts your position.

  7. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    TonyW, see table 3 ("Current per capita CO2e emissions - consumption based").  As the current agreements being negotiated are based on inertia (again see above), the per capita emissions, whether consumption or production based, are not factored into the agreements.  Further, the moving baseline (2005 rather than 1990) penalizes those nations that reduced emissions early (primarilly Europe).  In essence, the western nations - and in particular the US and Australia - are only paying lip service to equity in the agreements in any event.  Their position seems to be that they would rather destroy the world than be fair.  Such niceties as the distinction between per capita consumption based and per capita production based emissions is so far from their concerns as to be practically irrelevant.  At least for this round of negotiations.

  8. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    In a way, the notion of individual nations contributions should be related to all emissions caused by their individual economies, not just emissions coming from within their borders. China's growth, for example, is partly due to that country producing a vast array of products destined for other countries (it's difficult to buy anything, here in NZ, that wasn't made or packed in China). This would further complicate actions but demontrates, I think, that this is a global problem and requires a global strategy rather than a collection of individual nation strategies.

  9. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    This is an interesting anthropocentric discussion. The reality is that people only make decisions, good and bad, and it is the operation of the infrastructure that uses the fossil fuels. Changing the infrastructure to reduce the rate of usage of fossil fuels will be a slow, eco costly process in those circumstances where that is possible. There are no reasonable alternative liquid fuels for land, sea and air transportation needs. ironically, society is very dependent on the goods and services this infrastructure currently provides. Of course, they are also dependent on the impact of the climate on many of their actvities, including eating food and using water!

  10. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    rustneversleeps @4

    I apologize. I unintentionally misled you. The goal of carbon fee & dividend is not to redistribute income but to increase the price of fossil fuels and their products, making alternate energy sources more attractive. The redistribution of income would be a consequence of the dividend component. The dividend component is provided for purposes of internal equity (so low users of fossil fuels would not be penalized) and for purposes of making the deal attractive to conservatives (no increase in the size of government; all income returned to the people).

    If carbon fee & dividend were implemented in the USA, the increasing the price of fossil fuels and their products would have the effect of reducing their use, compared to fossil-fuel-independent energy sources and products. If Americans behave like the rational purchasers that economists tend to think they are, then they'll purchase less fossil-fuel-dependent stuff and more fossil-fuel-independent stuff. Thus Americans will move from generating much more CO2 than average to closer-to-average, and eventually to zero generation of CO2 (when the carbon fee becomes sufficiently high and alternative energy infrastructure is readily available).

  11. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    Um, 14% of beef is feedlot, not 95%.

    "There are also large tracts undergrazed and slowly turning to desert because of this". I am intrigued. How does undergrazing lead to desert? I would have thought desert was a water thing. Fence anything off from grazing here and it rapidly turns into woodland, even in dry areas.

    I agree about the false dichotomy. There is more than one way to fix most problems. You get the same thing from hard-line socialists. "AGW cant be solved without ending capitalism". Yeah, right. Or, the "we must go back horse and cart pre-industrial world". Vegans are a varied lot in my experience. Their evangelization efforts (those that do) often sound to me more like justifying to themselves their choices. Like many things we do, (including climate-change denial) the choice is often value-based with post-hoc rationalization. Making choices based on data is not a natural human activity even for scientists.

  12. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    scaddenp @6, I suggest the most important part of the article to which you link is the final paragraph:

    "Raghavan and Ma suggest that attempts to create more energy-efficient internet devices, while worth pursuing, will not do much to lower global energy consumption. Instead, they propose that we should think about how the internet can replace more energy-intensive activities. Their calculations show that a meeting that takes place by video-conference uses an average of one hundredth as much energy as one in which participants took a flight so that they could sit down together. Replacing just one in four of those meetings by a video call, they add, would save as much power as the entire internet consumes."

  13. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @scaddenp #130,

    You said,"I would also say that there is a big difference between what can be done and is being done." 

    Agreed 95% of beef in the US is feedlot and 50% of the grasslands are overgrazed. Very little of the rest is actually MIRG, although there is a big push by the USDA to change that, even a demonstration here in central OK last week. Very convincing I might add. There are also large tracts undergrazed and slowly turning to desert because of this. USA is a big country. even with all that, there are plenty of inovative farmers developing models for the next revolution in agriculture, leaps and bounds ahead of the rest.

    The only reason I even started that line of discussion in the thread was to point out the false dichotomy logic flaw. You have an industry contributing to AGW. The false dichotomy being that the only choice to change that is end agriculture/animal husbandry or accept the climate impact. There is a third option of improving the production model. I actually know dozens of ways farmers have made improvements crop farmers, ranchers and integrated combination farms. I am developing one myself as of yet unproven. But all that specifics is off topic and only serves to aide AGW denialists by diverting the attention away from the real problems we have existing right now.

    You do understand why AGW denialists are using that false dichotomy right? Since we have to eat, the false dichotomy becomes only 1 choice, ignore the whole thing. And the reason the Vegans like the false dichotomy is they change it to "convert the whole world to veganism or ignore AGW" and hope to gain recruits.

  14. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    2% . Try here.

  15. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    What is the estimate of the energy usage worldwide of all the servers, databases etc that the internet uses, as a ratio of total energy use?

  16. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    I would also say that there is a big difference between what can be done and is being done. Across whole of US, grazing is not net Co2e sink at the moment and nor can you blame feedlots only. It appears with appropriate management, you can make grazing a net sink. However, it would also seem possible that can make grain production a net sink as well. Other considerations come into this.

  17. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    Mark R @18.

    UAH TLT v6.0 is flat 1998-to-date but has a positive trend 1999-to-date.

    Regarding the difference between v6.0 & v5.6, you can also include the difference between them & RSS and with surface measurements like HadCRUT4.

    Although there has been a lot of talk of UAHv5.6 showing less warming that the surface measurements, if you ignore the first 5 years of UAHv5.6, the trend is indistinguishable - UAH 0.175ºC/decade against HadCRUT 0.178ºC/decade.

    The difference in trend between UAH TLT v6.0 and v5.6 is large with RSS sitting in between. (See rolling-average graph two clicks down here) The profile of v6.0-RSS shows many of the same features as v5.6-v6.0 but with v5.6 the difference in trend greater plus and there is a big bulge centred on 1998. Given the ziggy-wobbles in HadCRUT-v6.0 appear concurrent with El Chichon & Pinatuba, plus the big bulge sort of makes sense with a similar timing, I do wonder if the effect resulting from that extra 1,000m of altitude between average v6.0 and average v5.6 could have a lot to do with aerosol/cloud.

  18. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    Redbaron. Thanks very much for that Conant et al reference. That is what I was looking for. That is truly impressive and also directly counter to NZ experience which means someone needs to figure out why. I have passed it to friends for comment.

    In NZ, dairy farmers pour masses of industrial nitrogen onto grassland. I would gratified to hear that MIRG in US doesnt? I would also love to know what the stocking rate is. Do you know?

    If I understand correctly, you believe the very best measured methane oxidation rates in grassland are also degraded and could be improved? Despite being same for unmanaged native grassland? Do have data to support the idea that MIRG increases methane oxidation rates?

  19. Wind energy is a key climate change solution

    Publishing such uncritical marketing for a company does disservice to Skeptical Science. How about reading for example the Wind technologies Market report to check those "signifigant and sustained" cost reductions?Today wind costs about the same as 15 years ago. It is mature technology. https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-188167.pdf

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Fixed link.

  20. rustneversleeps at 05:26 AM on 11 December 2015
    The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    Joel_Huberman @3

    A carbon fee and per capita dividend is probably equitable within a national jurisdiction. I am dubious that it addresses the issues raised in this article.

    For instance, as you point out, if that scheme were implemented in the U.S., it is forecast that 2/3 of the population would receive more back in the dividend than they would face in increased costs as the tax is passed through the economy. But, as Table 10 in Chancel and Piketty shows, 90% of that same population is currently producing more than the world average of CO2-eq emissions. So, domestically, you are effectively redistributing income from super-extremely-high-emitters to just-extremely-high-emitters viewed from a global perspective.

    Not saying it isn't the way to go, but we need to honest about it if we are going to pretend it is addressing the equity question.

  21. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @ wideEyedPupil #125

    OGF was long thought to be carbon neutral, recent studies showing that rather it can sequester roughly 2 tonnes C / hectare / yr [1] possibly the reason for the discrepency being the higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Giving you the benefit of the doubt.

    An improved grassland management system sequesters 0.11 to 3.04 tonnes C / hectare / yr and feeds a whole lot more human beings. [2] and that's on much dryer land, which is why it is grassland in the first place.

    Obviously it is counter productive to cut down OGF to raise grains to supply feedlots. However, from the start everyone here on this thread has agreed. There is no debate. The debate is the myth 'animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming.' and associated rebuttal. 

    The rebuttal is correct, it is a myth. and also in so much as  animal husbandry does contribute slightly to AGW, it is only due to the models of production, not the cow itself, as explained on multiple posts above with multiple references. Most particularly:

    Environmental impacts on the diversity of methane-cycling microbes and their resultant function

    A feedlot uses grains. Those grains produced with haber process nitrogen. So look at what the study says about that. "In a temperate agricultural soil, long-term fertilization with ammonium nitrate reduced methanotroph abundance by >70%"

    Now compare with a cow raised on a properly managed pasture fertilised by the cow's own waste. "In contrast, organic fertilizer addition can increase methanotroph abundance and associated rates of methane oxidation"

    So you see? It has nothing to do with the cow, it is a flaw in the factory farming production model that needs fixed. You fix that by scrapping the flawed CAFO production model and replacing it with a different type of pasture based intensive system that doesn't have those same flaws. No cutting of OGF required. In fact that would be counter productive. Instead you would want to convert cropland to pasture and regenerate soil health.

    This also shows that the vegan idea of eliminating animal husbandry is flawed as well. Because without animal waste you are stuck with haber process nitrogen fertiliser. And what does that do? Reduce methanotroph populations by over 70%. No solution there either.

  22. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    ryland @8,

    I'd be surprised if UAH v6.0 shows a statistically significant decrease in trend although its best estimate is indeed lower. However, in order to get these "slowdown" trends you have to allow for magical "jumps" in termperature just before the proposed slowdown. This is a result of the long-term global warming trend and the Escalator shows the principle behind it. Tamino has also posted about this, showing that claims of a slowdown require magical non-physical temperature jumps just before your desired slowdown.

    So even if you pick some of the data to make the trend look smaller, your period is going to be warmer than the previous one because you've still stepped up in temperatures. 

    Of course, this is not obvious in most presentations that claim a slowdown because the presenters typically choose to hide the earlier data.

  23. The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    OPOF @2,

    If I understand your comment correctly, then I think a simpler scheme, which might have slightly more than a snowball's chance in hell of getting passed by the legislature in my country (USA), would be double taxation as I shall describe.

    First--a carbon fee & dividend scheme similar to the one proposed by Citizens' Climate Lobby, but with higher initial rate and higher annual increments (due to the need for very rapid decarbonization). All the income collected from the fees on fossil fuel production would be returned in equal per capita amounts to all legal residents to compensate for rising energy costs. Calculations show that about 2/3 of residents would receive more from the dividend than they would pay in higher energy costs. The generally increased cost of fossil fuels and of all products and services derived from them would provide a market-based incentive to switch to alternative energy sources.

    Second--an airflight tax similar to the one proposed by Chancel and Pikkety (see original post), but higher due to the need for larger amounts than previously calculated to pay for the giant economic transformation needed by the poor countries of the world. As an occasional flyer myself, it seems to me that an increment averaging $100 per flight would not be overly burdensome.

  24. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    I think it may be highly relevent. So a second line of attack would be to try removing the ENSO signal from the temperatures at the different pressure levels.

    There are lots of pointers to there being interesting science to be done here. Unfortunately I can't take it on this time!

  25. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    I don't know if this is relavent, Kevin, but isn't that 500-700mb altitude right around the base of where we should be detecting the tropospheric hotspot?

    Would it make sense that that region of the atmosphere would be heavily influenced by the ENSO cycle, so that over a period dominated by la Nina we might actually expect to see less of a trend over the time frames being discussed?

  26. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    Yes, the weighted averages are less different than the peaks.

    What difference does it make? We can take a look at a reanalysis - in this case ERA-interim. Ideally we'd look at the weighted mean of the pressure levels, but for now I've just looked at the 700mb (3km) and 500mb (5.5km) levels. For the period 1998-2014 I get a trend of 0.08C/decade for the 700mb level and 0.04C/decade for the 500mb level (quick calculation without checks).

    However the difference in trend between the two levels is reversed for the period before 1998. That's consistent with the behavour of the difference between UAH v6.0 and v5.6. I haven't looked at the magnitude of the difference, but it could be that most of the difference between v5.6 and v6.0 is explained by the difference in the height sampling profile.

    That's an interesting project for someone to take on.

  27. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    From the graphs presented by Spencer in his write-up, the UAHv0.6beta sensitivity averages to an altitude of 4,500m while the UAHv5.6 averages to 3,400m. Using their version of such graphs, RSS averages to 4,200m.

  28. There is no consensus

    to Pfc.Parts @722 : you make a fair point, with your comment "It would be very nice if this site allowed comments to be edited."

    On balance though, that would not be a good idea ~ and I am sure you can picture the chaos and non-sequiturs which would occur as posters go back and modify their posts, even with innocent intent (let alone the malicious intent). Nope: to be fair to all, a non-self-modified posting system is definitely far better.

    Mind you, it could be reasonable to allow a poster to later insert a very obvious "corrigendum" paragraph at the end, to deal with clumsy bloopers / typos / or poorly-expressed phrasing . . . and this would help the flow of understanding in the commentary [rather than having such corrections appear later and quite possibly be half-buried by other intervening posts]. Such corrigendum would require clear demarcation and date/time label.

    But . . . there would probably need to be a 24 or 48-hour cut-off for such "grafted-on" corrections. And even there, I am sure you can picture how some posters would try to play games and thoroughly abuse such a system. So, overall, it's simpler to keep this as they are : and it also makes for a simpler and less vulnerable control of the comments column.

    [apologies for this off-topic excursion]

  29. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    @2, 4, 9, 12  Thanks Kevin C and scaddenp for the time taken and the civil  and informative responses to a couple of my questions.  Such responses here are both rare and a pleasant surprise.  

  30. 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #49

    Mechanisms to capture industrial emissions have to be made of irreplaceable materials and have limited lifetimes. They may reduce the rate of emissions slightly for a while. As there is an existing commitment for infrastructure to use fossil fuels at a high rate, the concentration level in the atmosphere and ocean will continue to rise even if remedial policies are implemented.

  31. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    Spencer's write-up on UAH6.0beta notes that the peak sensitivity of 6.0 is at about 4km altitude, compared to about 2km for 5.6.

    I've done a little analysis of v6.0 from the perspective of using it to infill surface temperatures. My (so far unpublished) results show that, as you would probably expect, UAH6.0beta shows both lower spatial correlation and slightly less temporal correlation with surface temperature than v5.6. That's not to say v6.0 is wrong - it may be a better measure of temperature in the mid troposphere. However it is, both in theory and practice, less useful than v5.6 as a proxy for surface temperature.

  32. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    addition and clarification to the above post

    I am comparing a ~70%+ reduction of methanotrophs (other soil biota too)  with a 20% atmospheric increase in animal husbandry CO2e over the same time period. With agriculture now ~40% of the terrestrial surface, it is no wonder that methane oxidation is relatively insignificant to ruminant emissions now. Not to mention all the other sources of methane. It is no wonder the rest of the terrestrial biosphere is incapable of keeping up and methane is rising.

  33. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @"As to methanotrophs, I have already given you references to fact that methane oxidation is relatively insignificant to ruminant emissions, but by all means include it." and several related points and posts 

    What you are missing is when that observation was measured, before or after ~70%+ of the methanotrophs were exterpated from agricultural soils. I actually agree 100% that biotic methane oxidation is relatively insignificant to ruminant emissions NOW. That's the whole point. It is disgraceful. I am stunned you proposal would actually fight against restoring that lost ecosystem function, by blaming the tool that can best restore biotic communities in the soil when managed properly, the ruminant herbivore.

  34. One Planet Only Forever at 16:02 PM on 10 December 2015
    The Road to Two Degrees, Part Three: Equity, inertia and fairly sharing the remaining carbon budget

    I think there is a further step required to 'equitably' identify who should face what level of the total consequences of the now more challenging rapid reduction of burning of fossil fuels.

    Every wealthy powerful person today has very little ability to claim that they were unaware that it was unacceptable to try to get personal benefit from burning fossil fuels. In fact, for many decades every wealthy powerful person has only been able to try to hide or excuse or attempt to gather popular support for their understood to be unacceptable pursuits of benefit from the activity (and many other unacceptable activities).

    General taxation of entire national populations to gather 'corrective compensation' is not appropriate. Taxation focused on activities directly trying to benefit from the burning of fossil fuels should be the sole source of such tax revenue. That would mean a very high Carbon Tax plus Taxation of any business income (not on profit - tax on gross income) from the sale of fossil fuels (with a rebate of the tax if there is proof that the fossil fuels were not burned).

    That may appear to be 'double taxation', but it is just an attempt to more equitably share the consequences of the need to penalize the unacceptable pursuers of benefit from the burning of fossil fuels (between consumers and pursuers of profit). It would only 'double tax' an investor in the extraction and trade of fossil fuels who also chooses to personally burn a lot of fossil fuels.

    Another important consideration is the global change of 'directing economic activity' that could be developed to maximize the useable energy obtained from burning fossil fuels within the global cap on emissions. The old ways of 'competition to get away with benefiting the most that can be gotten away with' have inappropiately developed and prolonged economies (particularly through the past 25 years) and will clearly not be effective ways to address this challenge.

    A new way of globally working together could actually significantly increase the total energy obtained from fossil fuel burning by most rapidly shutting down the highest impacting activities per unit of final user obtained energy (including all impacts, not just the production of excess CO2). But that is not likely to happen because of the inertia of the inappropriately developed wealth on the planet.

    Many developed perceptions of prosperity and wealth are not fully deserved. Properly correcting those unsustainable perceptions (getting global acceptance of the need to correct those perceptions) will be a huge challenge, but overcoming it is essential to the future of humanity.

    People who think they are winners do not like becoming losers (even if they know they cheated and even if after their loss they will still actually be living better lives than most other people will ever be able to live).

    Science leading to better understanding continues to be the key mover of humanity towards a lasting better future for all (and the key target of those whose interests are negatively impacted by developing better understanding).

    The advancement of humanity has clearly been stalled and even set back whenever the pursuits of personal benefit can trump the better understanding of what is required to develop a lasting better future for all.

    Hopefully, this issue will lead to the type of change of global human awareness and understanding that can develop a lasting constantly improving future for all of humanity (Let the games end, and understanding rule).

  35. Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money

    I don' t comment on any other website so anything you see elsewhere under ryland is not from me.  And as for you not seeing "the slightest evidence" it may be that you don't always/refuse to recognise what you are seeing.  

  36. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    I'm concerned with the presentation of this page and the more recent version.

    The Zero Carbon Australia Land Use Report found that a proper and full accounting of GHG emissions pegs Land Use at 55% of emissions using 20 year GWP. As you'd be aware 20 yr GWP is significant, given the perilous state of many climatic system and stocks of ice etc. Even using 100 year GWP which tends to obscure the effects in near term on climate systems of methane and black carbon it will soon be at 50% of national emissions.

    The major contributing factors were found to be land clearing (often cyclical), savannah burning (repeated) and centric fermentation. This would make it likely that GHG emissions in North and South America might be in that vicinity given the large amount of Amazonian and other old growth forest clearing going on to grow cattle and soy crops to feed north american cattle.

    90% of that 55% of national emissions using 20yr GWP is associated with livestock ruminants, mostly the large extended zone pastural operations in northern Australia, mostly for cattle.

    By presenting this argument using standard UNFCCC accounting which majorly obscures, re-assigns and ignores emissions and removal of sequestration sources associate with Land Use Sector you are in fact perpetuating a myth not debunking one.

    To my best knowledge the ZCA Land Use Report was peer reviewed and supervised within MSSI (University of Melbourne) and has not be refuted in the literature. Nor has it's conclusion that 55% of Australia's national GHG emissions using 20 yr PWG are from the Land Use Sector. I'd ask the you rename these pages to be less pejorative and more in line with the science and debate if you want to call it that.

    Given that much of the old growth forest clearing going on in the world to produce more ruminnent grazing pasture and crops to feed ruminents and animals in general, and that this OGF is the greatest CO2 sequester known to man, and that it's impossible to regain the sequestration levels once OGFs are logged, even after a century, it's doubly important that land use sector emissions be seen as the major problem, perhaps the greatest problem in the short term for GHGs reduction (ignoring the politics of livestock lobby vs ff lobby), then renaming this Page and the old version is required.

    Alastair Leith
    Climate Activist and Campaigner

  37. Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

    Zero Carbon Australia Land Use Report

  38. Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

    I'm concerned with the presentation of this page http://www.skepticalscience.com/how-much-meat-contribute-to-gw.html.

    The Zero Carbon Australia Land Use Report found that a proper and full accounting of GHG emissions pegs Land Use at 55% of emissions using 20 year GWP. As you'd be aware 20 yr GWP is significant, given the perilous state of many climatic system and stocks of ice etc. Even using 100 year GWP which tends to obscure the effects in near term on climate systems of methane and black carbon it will soon be at 100 years,

    The major contributing factors were found to be land clearing (often cyclical), savannah burning (repeated) and centric fermentation. This would make it likely that GHG emissions in North and South America might be in that vicinity given the large amount of Amazonian and other old growth forest clearing going on to grow cattle and soy crops to feed north american cattle.

    90% of that 55% of national emissions using 20yr GWP is associated with livestock ruminants, mostly the large extended zone pastural operations in northern Australia, mostly for cattle.

    By presenting this argument using standard UNFCCC accounting which majorly obscures, re-assigns and ignores emissions and removal of sequestration sources associate with Land Use Sector you are in fact perpetuating a myth not debunking one.

    To my best knowledge the ZCA Land Use Report was peer reviewed and supervised within MSSI (University of Melbourne) and has not be refuted in the literature. Nor has it's conclusion that 55% of Australia's national GHG emissions using 20 yr PWG are from the Land Use Sector. I'd ask the you rename these pages to be less pejorative and more in line with the science and debate if you want to call it that.

    Given that much of the old growth forest clearing going on in the world to produce more ruminnent grazing pasture and crops to feed ruminents and  animals in general, and that this OGF is the greatest CO2 sequester known to man, and that it's impossible to regain the sequestration levels once OGFs are logged, even after a century, it's doubly important that land use sector emissions be seen as the major problem, perhaps the greatest problem in the short term for GHGs reduction (ignoring the politics of livestock lobby vs ff lobby), then renaming this Page and the old version is required. 

    Alastair Leith
    Climate Activist and Campaigner

     

  39. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @RedBaron I'm not sure if the way you talk around points made or recast them to your own misuse is motivated by your enthusiasm to be found correct or if it's wilful misspeech. Whatever, your claim that signifcant methane is not going to travel vertically away from the soil, never seeing the inside of a soil biota's digestion mechanism, and this methane you don't concede to is even so still a GHG sink is extremely odd and unsubstanciated in science.

    Your claim that the methane that isn't fixed in the soil meets abiotic oxidation is does not erase the problematic nature of methane for CC. Methane has a CO2-e co-efficient of 86 using 20 year GWP. That's what IPCC say in AR 5, and methane's CO2-e co-efficent has been upwardly revised each and every Assessment Report. Perhaps you are refering to some process that reduces the CO2-e co-effcient of methane in the atmosphere by pastures being hundreds of metres below the centre of the lower atmosphere that is not accounted for in the latest IPCC AR?

    You're making a large assumption that the decrease of methane outflow from pasture ruminants is greater than the reduced methane outflows from ruminants in the lots have due to dietary interventions. Again, elegant rhetioric is not what's required here, ugly data will suffice.

    @SkepticalScience… get a 5-10 minute edit window functionality for Dawkin's sake, it's the mature thing to do.

  40. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @RedBaron I'm not sure if the way you talk around points made or recast them to your own misuse is motivated by your enthusiasm to be fpound correct or if it's wilful misspeech, but either way your claim that some methane is not going to travel vertically away from the soil and never see the inside of a soil biota's digestion mechanism is somehow still a sink is extremely odd and unsubstanciated in science.

    Your claim that the methane that isn't fixed in the soil meets abiotic oxidation is does not erase the problematic nature of methane for CC. Methane has a CO2-e co-efficient of 86 using 20 year GWP. That's what IPCC say, and methane's CO2-e co-efficent has been upwardly revised each and every Assessment Report. Perhaps you are refering to some process that reduces the CO2-e co-effcient of methane in the atmosphere that is not accounted for in the latest IPCC AR?

    You're making a large assumption that the decrease of methane outflow from pasture ruminants is greater than the reduced methane outflows from ruminants in the lots have due to dietary interventions. Again, elegant rhetioric is not what's required here, ugly data will suffice.

    @SkepticalScience… get a 5 minute edit window functionality for god's sake, it's the mature thing to do.

  41. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @RedBaron I'm not sure if the way you talk around points made or recast them to your own misuse is motivated by your enthusiasm to be fpound correct or if it's wilful misspeech, but either way your claim that some methane is not going to travel vertically away from the soil and never see the inside of a soil biota's digestion mechanism.

    Your claim that the methane that isn't fixed in the soil meets abiotic oxidation is does not erase the problematic nature of methane for CC. Methane has a CO2-e co-efficient of 86 using 20 year GWP. That's what IPCC say, and methane's CO2-e co-efficent has been upwardly revised each and every Assessment Report. Perhaps you are refering to some process that reduces the CO2-e co-effcient of methane in the atmosphere that is not accounted for in the latest IPCC AR?

    You're making a large assumption that the decrease of methane outflow from pasture ruminants is greater than the reduced methane outflows from ruminants in the lots have due to dietary interventions. Again, elegant rhetioric is not what's required here, ugly data will suffice.  

  42. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @RedBaron I'm not sure if the way you talk around points made or recast them to your own misuse is motivated by your enthusiasm to be fpound correct or if it's wilful misspeech, but either way your claim that some methane is not going to travel vertically away from the soil and never see the inside of a soil biota's digestion mechanism.

    Your claim that the methane that isn't fixed in the soil meets abiotic oxidation is does not erase the problematic nature of methane for CC. Methane has a CO2-e co-efficient of 86 using 20 year GWP. That's what IPCC say, and methane's CO2-e co-efficent has been upwardly revised each and every Assessment Report. Perhaps you are refering to some process that reduces the CO2-e co-effcient of methane in the atmosphere that is not accounted for in the latest IPCC AR?

  43. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @scaddenp #118

    Yes, that has been seen before other places too. That is the specific thing Savory set to work figuring out and correcting, and what the big deal is over his holistic management. Knowing that is going to happen, proactively monitoring for it, and knowing how to adapt before it decreases ecosystem function, in every sort of complex situation is exactly what Savory has been working on for the last several decades. Which is why he is the top grazing scientist in the world.

  44. There is no consensus

    @Pfc. Parts 
    I gather from you're tone your here to troll not to learn, understand or convey science. But if you're interested in the source you can listen the full interview with Ben Santer (lead author of the historic 1995 IPCC) here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOrUYQhGzT8

    He states, no known natural mechanisms or combination of natural causes  have that sustained effect, that human fingerprint, in this unquie way.

    My focus has been, in the last 10 years or so, on two things. One is the vertical structure of temperature changes in the atmosphere. If you look from the surface of the Earth right up into the stratosphere, 20 miles above the surface of the Earth, what we’ve actually observed in weather balloon measurements and satellite measurements is this complex pattern of warming low down and cooling up high. The lower atmosphere, the troposphere, has shown warming pretty much across all latitude bends, and the upper atmosphere has shown cooling over the last 30 to 40 years or so.

    It turns out that that pattern of warming low down and cooling up high is really distinctive. We know of no natural mechanisms that can generate something like that, sustained for three or four decades. Volcanoes can’t do it. The sun can’t do it. Internal climate variability can’t do it, nor can some combination of natural causes: volcanoes, the sun, and internal variability generate that complex pattern of warming low down and cooling of the upper atmosphere. The only thing that we know of that can generate that distinctive fingerprint is human-caused increase in heat-trapping greenhouse gasses, and human-caused depletion in the upper atmosphere of stratospheric ozone.

    It’s been fascinating over my career to look at ever-better satellite observations and ever-better model simulations and see that fingerprint pattern of human effects literally emerging from the noise. The best information we have now from our most recent research is that the chances of getting a fingerprint match between that human fingerprint pattern of warming low down and cooling up high and purely natural causes is infinitesimally small. The signal-to-noise ratio is greater than 10. That’s what our research tells us. There’s just no way of explaining what we’ve actually observed without invoking a strong human effect on climate.

  45. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    @scaddenp #117

    I gave you two studies already (one focusing on water holding capacity which is directly related to carbon in the soil and the other here[1]), as far as anything comprehensive that includes all the various forms of MIRG in all the various climatic and soil conditions, I haven't seen that quantified anywhere yet. It might be a good thing for someone to do. The closest to that I have found is this 

    "Rates of C sequestration by type of improvement ranged from 0.11 to 3.04 Mg C·ha−1 yr−1, with a mean of 0.54 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1, and were highly influenced by biome type and climate. We conclude that grasslands can act as a significant carbon sink with the implementation of improved management.[2]" And even that includes all sorts "improvement", and doesn't really simply compare MIRG to set stock rate continuous grazing.

    This isn't really a scientific study, but might be useful to you in helping show you the mechanics behind how to properly start. Then of course if you applied holistic management as described post #77 with the monitoring and adaptive management plan, it would help you personally optimise it for your own particulars:  "This bulletin covers the basic principles underlying all types of rotational grazing. Management intensive rotational grazing will be emphasized because it offers a number of advantages over both continuous grazing and less intensive rotational systems.
    These include
    ■ more stable production during
    poor growing conditions (especially
    drought),
    ■ greater yield potential,
    ■ higher quality forage available,
    ■ decreased weed and erosion
    problems, and
    ■ more uniform soil fertility levels.
    There are many names for intensive rotational grazing: Voisin grazing, Hohenheim grazing, intensive grazing management, management intensive grazing, short duration grazing, Savory systems, strip grazing, controlled grazing, and high-intensity, low-frequency grazing. Although each term implies slight differences in management, they all refer to some sort of intensive rotational grazing system."..."Rotational grazing also can increase the amount of forage harvested per acre over continuous grazing by as much as 2 tons dry matter per acre.[3]" Keep in mind while this is harvested forage and no figures were given for carbon sequestration, An increase of 2 tons harvested means ~4 tons above ground increase in vegetation with and even larger increase below ground+an additional 30% in root exudates that feed the soil food web. As we discussed before that is active fraction, not stable, but the below ground is where the stable fraction forms. So at least in Minnisota that's big increases.

    Specifically for sequestered carbon I would send your soil scientist friend to contact Jay Furher. I know he did and is still doing some case studies for the USDA that are measuring carbon.

  46. There is no consensus

    It would be very nice if this site allowed comments to be edited.

  47. There is no consensus

    I was proof reading my post here on the last page of comments when I encountered this gem:

    "One of the human finger prints cited in the first week of the Denial course was that the atmospheric warming this century is unique in the fact of warming lower atmosphere and cooling upper atmosphere"


    Not sure who came up with this but it's trully choice. So how many folks were measuring the temperature of Earth's stratosphere 200 years ago? 500 years ago? 2000? 20,000 years ago?

    Whoever made up that fun fact should get a prize, it's a real whopper.

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] try reading for understanding rather than demostrating misunderstanding before banding about accusations. The surface temperature of any planet can be altered by changing solar input, albedo, GHG composition or aerosols. Increases in GHG composition is unique in that it is only forcing change that will warm the surface but cool stratosphere.

  48. There is no consensus

    "Tom" doesn't make it possible. "To make"

    "methodology" not "mehtodology"

    "vapor" not "vaport"

    "suborbital" not "soborbital"

  49. There is no consensus

    John writes: "Science achieves a consensus when scientists stop arguing"

    Actually that's a bit simplistic. A scientifi consensus is formed after a series of scientists are able to reproduce the work of the scientist advancing a hypothesis. This is done by publishing confiming/denying results in refreed journals. Tom make that possible, the person advancing the hypothesis first fully explains it, then describes how it was tested (the "mehtodology"), the observed data and the results.

    A scientific consensus isn't formed by simple agreement between scientists, it's evidence based and very much dependent on repeatable experiment. So while the consensus that CO2 is a "greenhouse" gas, meaning that like water vapor and methane it absorbs and radiates solar energy in known quanta, there is no consensus on the effect or "sensitivity" Earth's climate has to increases or decreases in it. Which is the problem.

    We know CO2 absorbs IR. Water vaport (H20) observes much more, so much more that IR astronomers put their telescopes as high as possible, on Mauna Kea, Medium Altitude soborbital platforms like the KAO and SOPHIA, and in low Earth orbit in order to get above H20. IR astronomers aren't particularly worried about CO2 because its effect is so small it just doesn't matter.

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Myths about water vapour are addressed under "water is the most powerful greenhouse gas". Make your arguments there. Offtopic comments will be deleted.

  50. How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

    Nuts. On closer examination, the high SOC gains were only short term. On decadal scale SOC was either stable or reducing. but depends on soil type.

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