Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 Next
Comments 26251 to 26300:
-
Tom Curtis at 14:23 PM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
wili @7, high temperatures in 2015 relative to post 2000 values is primarilly due to the strong El Nino, and yes, they will revert to trend. The trend they will revert to is most probabibly about 15% less than the model predicted trend of 0.2 C per decade. That trend will increase overtime, but gradually at first so it is not likely to be much above that till after 2030.
-
Tom Curtis at 14:20 PM on 16 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
TonyW @14, it is not a fraud. What has been accomplished is that the world's nations have made explicit, testable statements of what they think they can accomplish. In doing so, they have bet their national, and personal prestige on their doing so. Further, they fact of the commitments provides genuine political and/or diplomatic leverage against policies which fail to meet commitments.
That is not very much - but it is something. Further, it is as much as can be expected at the moment politically and diplomatically. That it is all that can be expected is a travesty, but it is what it is. I am certain that COP21 will result in reduced global emissions relative to what would have happened had no agreement been reached. Just nowhere near the reduction in emissions necessary for avoiding 2 C (ignoring large scale carbon sequestration).
-
TonyW at 13:56 PM on 16 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
I'm amazed that the agreement has received such a positive response. Actually, James Hansen had one of the most reasonable responses - it's a fraud. As others have noted, there are no actual plans for how even the paltry INDCs will be implemented and no legal means of enforcing them. The language is weak and an aspiration of 1.5C sounds nice but I doubt you'd find any climate scientist that thinks it's possible (apart from the odd contrarian who doesn't think sensitivity is very high). So if they are including an impossible aspiration, then that really drags down the whole thing. We'll see more talk-fests in 2018, 2020 and 2023, whilst GHG concentrations continue to rise (unless we get economic contraction).
Also, fair comment, Wili. -
wili at 13:40 PM on 16 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Forget population and growth: even freakin' fossil fuels were apparently unspeakable in the Paris deal.
therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15300
How can we ever actually get anywhere if we can't even use the most basic words that most accurately describe the sources of the problem and the areas that most have to change??
-
wili at 13:29 PM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
Tom, are you trying to say that the increased temperatures this year are due to El Nino and that soon after we will return to the longer-term trend of near linear increases in GW?
Do you expect that we will see any acceleration of that heating anytime in the coming years and decades?
-
Tom Curtis at 11:43 AM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
ArnotSmith @4, there is also a lagged natural drawdown of CO2 concentration so that if we ceased all emissions, to a first order approximation, temperatures will remain constant. The gradual increase of temperture to ECS will be balanced out by the gradual drawdown of CO2. That means that if we could genuinely eliminate all emissions, including all anthropogenic NOX or CH4 emissions, even at 560 ppmv we would have a 50/50 chance of limiting temperature rise to 2 C (470 ppmv for 1.5 C).
As it happens, with out sequestration, it is impossible to eliminate all emissions, particularly of agricultural CH4 and NO2 so that we would hope to reach zero net emissions of CO2 significantly prior to that. That is not going to happen on the COP21 agreement. Therefore our chance of keeping temperatures below 2 C, and certainly for below 1.5 C depend on economically viable, large scale sequestration of atmospheric CO2 in the second half of this century. Absent that sequestration, we are looking at 2.5-3.5 C for midrange TCR estimates, and must relly on the fortunate fact that the 2 C cutoff is somewhat arbitrary. Going above 2 C will be worse than staying below it, but incrementally so rather than a dicontinuity resulting on complete catastrophe. That is, it will be bad, and will result in significant loss of life, but is unlikely to result in the end of civilization.
-
ArnotSmith at 11:41 AM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
What's more, at 1.0C we are already seeing significant instability in the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets, pointing to up to 10m sea level rise in an uncertain period, even if we stay below 1.5C.
Can we go back 20 years and try again?
-
ArnotSmith at 10:57 AM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
But - there is a lag. 400ppm CO2 is enough to bring us to around 1.5C increase in equlibrium. Therefore we can not accept any more CO2 emissions. Which seems unlikely to happen. :(
-
Tom Curtis at 09:24 AM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
wili @2, trend is relevant when we hit peaks just as much as when we hit troughs.
-
wili at 08:50 AM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
What is your estimate for the amount that the world's temperature will raise if/when we stop spewing enormous amounts of polluting (but insolation-shielding) aerosols into the atmosphere?
I've heard estimates from .2 C to 2 C, but I haven't kept up to date on the latest studies on this.
-
wili at 08:48 AM on 16 December 2015Myles Allen: Can we hold global warming to 1.5°C?
"value of human-induced warming is over 0.9C"
Isn't it closer to 1.1 C?
-
Eclectic at 08:45 AM on 16 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Wyoming ( @11 ) , you are much too pessimistic. The situation is not black-and-white; not all-or-nothing. The Kyoto agreement was (and is) rather effete, yet the Paris agreement shows signs of being halfway realistic. And sure, the global warming crisis [ or is "gradual crisis" a better term? ] is something which justifies much greater action : greater action which could be taken without significant harm to the world economy. Nevertheless . . . half a glass is better than an empty glass.
You are of course right, in that "drastically reduced population" would be of considerable benefit here. But that is not going to happen by choice, is it? Halting or reducing the population surge is (politically) unspeakable.
And you are right, about another great unspeakable : and that is, doing something to curb "Growth". The world's economic Growth is such a deity, that it is barely permissible to mention growth without using a capital "G". Political leaders are quite locked-in to praising & pursuing "growth", because they have long educated the populace to believe that "growth" [measured in dollars] is an entitlement, a cure for all ills, and an innately worthy goal . . . its only alternative being evil stagnation or (yet more evil) decay.
Quite a nonsensical position, to be sure. But any politician mentioning a plan for halting Growth (or even, oh shudder, aiming for negative Growth) would immediately be howled down as a heartless monster and baby-killer.
No, it is much too late to speak sensibly about our "growth" problem. All I can see, is the possibility of speaking of aiming at Quality Growth as an alternative choice to our present god Quantity Growth. Quality growth implies better quality, longer-laster physical possessions : which are not requiring the vast churn of resources & energy currently done in our manufacturing (and planned-obsolence) economy.
-
Tristan at 06:32 AM on 16 December 2015How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
Ha anyone consumed this paper yet? It's claims seem rather surprising.
It suggests that a greater percentage of fruit and veggies in diets is worse for the environment.
"These perhaps counterintuitive results are primarily due to USDA recommendations for greater Caloric intake of fruits, vegetables, dairy, and fish/seafood, which have relatively high resource use and emissions per Calorie."
-
Wyoming at 04:36 AM on 16 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
'....deniers have lost the climate wars.'
'In short, leaders from around the world have agreed that we must do everything we can to slow global warming as much as we can,......'
???
Well I must say I don't understand those sentiments at all. My understanding of the world and what happened in Paris would come up with a statement more along the lines of this.
"Once again world leaders failed to live up to their responsibilities of looking out for the good of the populace and bowed to short term political and corporate interests."
This 'agreement' is worthless for all the obvious reasons. It does not advance us in any meaningful way beyond Kyoto. Anyone who has paid attention to what countries say and then later do knows that there is no commitment there and many lies have been told. Look at what people are doing not at what they are saying. One knows for certain that what we will get is much less than the text of the 'agreement' and the agreement is for numbers which spell disaster. Bright green BS is no more useful to us than fossil based obstruction.
We will not be making progress until there are 'actions' which implement a dialogue on the need to drastically reduce population numbers (not just the growth rate), reduce affluence (not raise it), reduce consumption (not raise it), ban burning coal (and use force to make it happen), etc. All we have here is more wordsmithing like we have seen for the last 20 years.
-
Tom Curtis at 02:46 AM on 16 December 2015Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money
JohnSeers @23, From Keenlyside et al:
"We now consider two forecasts, started in November 2000 and November 2005. The MOC is predicted to weaken almost to its 1950–2005 mean over the next decade (Fig. 3a), leading to a weakening of Atlantic SST hemispheric difference towards zero (Fig. 3b). North Atlantic (not shown), western European (Fig. 3c) and North American (Fig. 3d) surface temperatures cool towards 1994–2004 levels. In contrast, in the un-initialized (twentieth century-RF) predictions the MOC slightly weakens, the hemispheric SST difference is unchanged, and warming of surface temperatures over the latter three regions continues (Fig. 3a–d). Eastern tropical Pacific SST is forecasted to remain almost unchanged, but 0.3 K cooler than the uninitialized predictions (Fig. 3e). The differences in predicted North Atlantic and tropical Pacific variability lead to a large difference in the global mean temperature prediction: the initialized prediction indicates a slight cooling relative to 1994–2004 levels, while the anthropogenic-forcing-only simulation suggests a near 0.3 K rise (Fig. 4). In the long-term both projections agree with each other, as is found by extending the 2005 prediction till 2030 (Fig. 4). Internal decadal fluctuations were also found to offset anthropogenic global warming in a previous study19, but the offset was much less pronounced and associated primarily with changes in the tropical Pacific."
(My emphasis)
And here is the relevant figure 4:
Note, the prediction (greenline) is that the decadal average starting Nov 2000 will be "slightly" cooler than the observed 1994-2004 levels on HadCRUT3 (redline), not their hindcast values (greenline) which are lower.
-
José M. Sousa at 02:29 AM on 16 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
http://climateandcapitalism.com/2015/12/13/cop21-world-agrees-to-increase-emissions/
-
jipspagoda at 02:16 AM on 16 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
The only thing accomplished was job security for the bureaucrats in attendance.
-
JohnSeers at 01:54 AM on 16 December 2015Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money
"In 2008, a paper was published in the journal Nature predicting that global surface temperatures would cool slightly in the years 2005–2015 as compared to 1994–2004."
Not quite what it says in the abstract (which is all I can see):
"Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, ..."
-
Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money
I've found it fascinating - over the last five years the deniers have in turn focused on HadCRUT3, then UAH, and now RSS in sequence. Moving to whatever temperature record showed the least warming over recent years, and jumping ship whenever that record reversed variability and warmed faster, or received an update that took it off the bottom of the list.
Cherry picking in the extreme.
-
knaugle at 23:45 PM on 15 December 2015Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money
It is interesting that the discussion is very specific about UAH, ver 5.6 or 6.0, yet RSS is at version 3.3 and nearly every source I read in the public literature is silent on this. The point remains that it seems many politicos, like Sens. Cruz & Inhofe, argue that when the surface datasets make revisions, they are cheating. Yet when the satellite data is modified, they are silent, and that is just the normal course of science?
-
bill shockley at 13:03 PM on 15 December 2015The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
Source article:
-
bill shockley at 12:57 PM on 15 December 2015The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
O boy. Didn't mean for the image to be that big... hope I haven't broken the site. :)
If it's not clear from the image captions, each scenario assumes 2 GtC/year CO2
drawdown in the years 2031 -2080 by reforestation and agricultural soil management techniques.
The source article is here.
From instances where a carbon tax has been tried, indications are that emissions begin to come down
in the first year.
-
bill shockley at 12:44 PM on 15 December 2015The Road to Two Degrees, Part Two: Are the experts being candid about our chances?
I'm arriving late to this discussion but I sure do have a couple questions for KA if he's still accessible.
His objection to a carbon tax is that it unfairly burdens the least wealthy in society. This opinion seems to imply that he is unaware of the revenue neutral option, a circumstance I find not probable, considering James Hansen's long and loud advocacy. So, what else might be his objection to the rev-neutral fee/dividend approach.
Similarly, Hansen has been advocating for a global policy of CO2 drawdown via deforestation and agricultural soil management methods, which he thinks can amount to 2 GtC/year once the program is in full swing. Such a capability would be a huge boost to our ability to moderate atmospheric CO2 levels. Has KA considered and rejected this notion, or is he unaware of the potential?
Moderator Response:[GT] Image resized to fit page. Please ensure any images you insert are sized to no more than 500 wide - larger breaks the page.
-
Tom Dayton at 12:33 PM on 15 December 2015Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Sorry, JoeT, I haven't tried to understand Roy Spencer's admission of the satellite-based estimate of tropospheric temperature being not usable as a proxy for surface temperature. I don't have time right now, since I'd have to spend a lot of time to research it. I posted that just because it's informative that even Spencer has admitted it.
-
ryland at 11:59 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Thanks eclectic I wish that I was more careful and you less observant as I now feel very mortified. Perhaps the moderator (who is not unfamiliar with editing my posts) will rescue me with a small p.
-
Tom Curtis at 11:13 AM on 15 December 2015How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
saileshrao @139:
1) The pope, apparently, prefers "...frugal, healthy meals made up of fruit, skinless chicken, and salads, with the occasional glass of wine." Ergo he is not even a vegetarian, let alone a vegan. It follows that whatever constitutes making animals "suffer and die needlessly" in his opinion, it does not include killing them for meat. To quote him to suggest otherwise is to misrepresent him. Nor does it encourage me in believing yours is a "moral stance". (Perhaps you should look up the meaning of satyagraha).
2) Whatever Ghandi's desires, the fact is that he was not a vegan. It follows that veganism is not necessary for the practise of ahimsa. Your insistence that it does merely speaks to your dogmatism, not to the meaning of the word, or the philosophy. It suggest that because you are unable to argue for veganism on its own merits you need to coopt a well recognized moral philosophy and argue falsely that veganism is the only expression of that philosophy.
As to actual dairy practises, I spent time on a dairy farm (in western Victoria) in my youth, and the practises were not cruel. Certainly they could be developed to be so (and may have been), and I would be against that development - but there is no necessary connection between dairy products and animal cruelty as you yourself acknowledge. Nor is there a necessary connection between meat products and animal cruelty although cruel slaughter practises may be more typical than not.
3) The point of the XKCD cartoon was to simply draw attention to some curious facts about mammals. You and Andy Skuce, however, use it to suggest humans have coopted most of the natural capacity of the world to support animals, it, most of NPP. So used, it is misleading in the extreme as it does not quantify all animal biomass, only land mammal biomass. Specifically, you state:
"After all, it is clear from the breakdown of the weight of land mammals on Earth that the livestock sector is a huge albatross around our necks today. The biomass of humans today, is already 1.8 times the biomass of wild megafauna that was sustained in native ecosystems for millions of years prior to human ascendance. Therefore, why would we continue supporting livestock megafauna whose biomass is additionally triple that of humans?"
Andy Skuce was more succinct, stating:
"XKCD has a cartoon that nicely illustrates the disproportionate mass of the world's cattle, with the implication that they have an outsize ecological hoofprint."
However, looking just at megafauna is fundamentally misleading about the world's sustainable biomass for the simple reason that prior to human impact, and even now, megafauna are a very small percentage of total biomass. A more informative comparison would be to note that human and human domestic animal biomass has raised megafauna biomass from 7 to 17% of land animal biomass. Even more informative would be to note that over the 20th century, Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production doubled from 13 to 25%. Of course, much of that human appropriation was in the form of increased cropping, which isn't on message for the vegan agenda.
4a)
"I presume that you accept my statements on the deleterious effect of livestock production on 1) biodiversity loss and on 2) desertification. Otherwise, focusing on just my third point would fall under "Cherry Picking" in John Cook's list of denial types."
It is foolish and insulting to make any such presumption and/or accusation. I used to have a disease:
I don't have it anymore. You can make all sorts of egregious errors and I may well ignore them because there is simply not enough time.
But as you raise the issue:
- The various great plains, savannah and other grasslands of the world sustained very large herds of hoofed animals for hundreds of thousands of years before human industrialization. The idea that replacing those herds with human controlled herds of hoofed animals will necessarilly lead to desertification is absurd. Some management practises may lead to that, but that at most leads to an argument for improving management practises.
- Large scale herding operations can lead to a loss of biodiversity, but on nowhere near the scale of large scale growing of grains.
- In both instanses, specific measures to deal with the problems are far better than blanket measures which are only indirectly related. Preventing deforestation of tropical rainforest is more effective than banning beaf. Those measures may well (indeed, will pobably) change the proportion of meat and vegetable matter farmed, with consequent changes in diet - but that is not the purpose of the measures, and merely legislating or volunarilly making the changes in diet is a very indirect and poor mechanism to drive the specific measures needed.
4b) Silver et al report sequestration for reclaimed tropical forest. You are not entitled to apply it to all lands confirm your estimate.
-
Eclectic at 11:09 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Quite right, Ryland. Pleasing as the Paris Gabfest was, there was more than a hint of the system of the old Stalinist "Five Year Plans" ~ where Politically Correct goals were lauded and trumpeted . . . to be followed by severe under-performance . . . until the pronunciamentos of the following Five Year Plan.
But at least, there is some indication that the convoy intends to steam in the same direction, even if at different speeds. Not many Flat-Earth political Captains remaining to assert that the ships will eventually fall off the edge of the world.
I also like your comment: "There's a lot of looholes [sic] to be exploited . . . " ~ très amusant, non? Dr Freud would doubtless categorize as anal-retentive, those political leaders who are actually closet deniers of climate science? :-)
-
ryland at 10:38 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Pleasant as it is to bask in the euphoria generated by the conclusions at the Paris COP21 conference te devil in this case will be in compliance. There are no specific policies, no penalties for not meeting agreed targets and emission cuts are not legally binding.. There's a lot of loopholes to be exploited and in reality the 2C target is unlikely to be reached let alone the 1.5C target in the proposed time frame. Good to be euphoric but sensible to temper euphoria with a significant slug of reality.
Moderator Response:[GT] 'p' added. Left the subsequent comments in place - we all need a little humour from time to time.
-
Eclectic at 10:35 AM on 15 December 2015There is no consensus
Flavoid, to put it another way: your statements have gone well wide of reality ~ you have missed the truth by a country mile !
I don't know how you managed to get it so wrong. Very likely, you haven't actually read the paper Cook et al., 2013. Even just a read of the the paper's Abstract [see link at the head of this thread] will show you how wide of the mark you are. Read with a calm mind, and you will see how straightforward it all is.
You will then also note the excellent quality-control of the Cook paper ~ and how the surveyed papers' authors themselves have expressed the same 97% via their own assessment.
So the matter of consensus is quite clear, too.
Even mavericks like Dr R. Tol have admitted (in a slightly curmudgeonly way) that the "consensus" is 90+% .
If there is to be a valid criticism of the "97%" as shown in the Cook paper, then the criticism [today] would be that the 97% is based on somewhat dated information [i.e. being on papers averaging about 10 years old by now].
A present-day and deep-searching survey would now probably show a climate-scientist consensus closer to 99% .
-
Susan Anderson at 10:34 AM on 15 December 2015Wind energy is a key climate change solution
In northern Europe, solar is not the best option, but wind does quite well. Leitwind and the Leitner group are pursuing a variety of solutions:
http://www.leitwind.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_Group
-
CBDunkerson at 10:05 AM on 15 December 2015There is no consensus
flavoid, sure I'll explain:
We only look at papers stating a position on the topic (of which 97% state that humans are causing most global warming) because factoring in papers which DON'T address the topic would be ridiculous.
Papers on needlepoint don't state that humans are responsible for global warming... ergo no consensus. See? Ridiculous.
Happy to help.
Moderator Response:[PS] Perhaps flavoid could clarify their position about "self-selected dataset" by providing examples of papers that dont support the consensus that would be missed by the selection procedure.
-
Usuallyunique at 08:05 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Before everyone does a slow clap and fade to credits.... After speaking tlarge numbers of people about climate change, I have come to the conclusion that the real problem isn't deniers, or the propagandists... It's the average person. Something drastic must be done to go above the noise of everyday existence that drowns out the siren from the future.
I was thinking the best way to accomulish this is to have all world climate scientists to go on strike until a carbon tax is instituted. the point of all of this research is to base policy decisions on it. This climate agreement isn't nearly enough and we all know that. Imagine the average persons reaction if it's announced.
-
Owen at 07:21 AM on 15 December 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #50
Ted Cruz (likely Republican candidate for President in US) is making a big deal out of the satellite data. It is important to understand these recent discrepancies.
-
Alexandre at 06:03 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Well... deniers would eventually loose anyway, since they're playing against the facts. But I guess the delay itself was already an achieved goal for them.
-
JoeT at 05:52 AM on 15 December 2015Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
Tom Dayton,
I saw you post this on David Appell's site and was looking for an appropriate place to ask this question at skepticalscience. Would it be possible for you to explain the connection between total precipitable water and microwave emission from oxygen molecules that casts doubt on the calculation of tropospheric temperature. I am not following the discussion between ehak and Spencer at the site you linked to.
-
flavoid at 05:46 AM on 15 December 2015There is no consensus
If you read the sentence stating 97% support, it's a self selecting subset of the data,
"of papers stating a position on human caused global warming"
of all the papaers in the Cook study, only 0.5% Explicitly support and quantify AWG as > 50%., (64 out of 11944)
of all papers stating a position, that number jumps to a whopping 1.5%. (64 out of 3974)
can someone explain to me how that equates to "consensus"
-
MA Rodger at 05:37 AM on 15 December 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #50
Wili @8.
All pretty basic stuff.
I used data from CDIAC (FF+cement) to check the annual increases in emissions. I didn't but you could refine that by adding Land-Use Change data.
1ppm requires an extra 2.13Gt(C) of CO2 in the atmosphere, with an airborne fraction of roughly 50%.
The atmospheric increase data was from the NOAA global CO2 page from which the sd was calculated.
-
matros_ at 04:51 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
From Carbon Tracker 2013 report
-
Tom Curtis at 02:48 AM on 15 December 2015It's a natural cycle
morken @23 and 24:
1) Here is the Berkeley Earth index of European temperatures from 1750 to 2013:
As can be seen, the very sharp fall in temperatures from 1770-1900 shown in your graph does not exist. Evidently Luedecke has adjusted the data to fit his theory.
2) Your graph clearly predicts a fall in temperature from 2002 to present, which has not occured in the data. Indeed, in the global data there has been an increase in temperature over that period. This looks very like a failed prediction to me.
3) Luedecke et al compare their, purportedly solar driven forcings to European temperatures only. He had good reason to do so as global temperatures fit his curve less well than do his (idiosyncratic) European temperatures:
Note in particular the flatter, near zero trend prior to 1900, the delayed minimum around 1900 (ie, 191--20 rather than 1900 as in his model and the European data), the early (1940) mid twentieth century peak relative to European and Luedecke's model, and the continuing increase rather than the predicted decrease in temperatures post 2000 (not perfectly obvious as the graph lacks the new record setting years of 2014 and 2015).
Not only has Luedecke cherry picked a data set to better fit his theory, but the poorer fit of global data means he is compelled to claim that European, but not global, temperatures are driven by the (global) solar forcing. At least he would if he were not so practised at simply sweeping contrary evidence under the carpet.
4) I note that you so uncritically swallow Luedecke's nonsense that you don't even note the time of peak temperatures on his graph, and therefore don't even note the persistent lack of his predicted decline over the last decade.
-
RedBaron at 01:59 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
Fantastic! Assuming countries keep their agreement it is 1/2 the battle. Next is biome regeneration to actually sequester more carbon or the goals won't be reached.
-
wili at 01:13 AM on 15 December 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #50
Thanks for the responses. Your numbers are very interesting, MA. Can you give some links or formulas for how you derived them so I can share them more convincingly elsewhere? Thanks.
Eclectic, I'm sorry that you don't like my wording, but the news articles I've seen actually use stronger language than that: The world's CO2 emissions fell in 2015
Perhaps I'm missing your point?
I don't, by the way, necessarily trust these proclamation, since they seem to be based mostly on China's self reported data, data that has been norious in the past for under-reporting and for major 'adjustments' upward after the headlines have all been printed.
I was really posing what (to me) is mostly a hypothetical--if these reports were true, when would we expect to see them reflected in the atmospheric concentration data, and how large would that effect be?
-
morken at 01:05 AM on 15 December 2015It's a natural cycle
Here more details: http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/03/german-scientists-show-climate-driven-by-natural-cycles-global-temperature-to-drop-to-1870-levels-by-2100/#sthash.4x551NDK.dpbs
Moderator Response:[RH] Fixed image size. Please limit your images to 500px in width.
-
morken at 00:44 AM on 15 December 2015It's a natural cycle
The climate It is created by an overlap of natural cycles, mainly the 65-year “Atlantic/Pacific oscillation” (AMO/PDO) and the 208 year “de Vries cycle”.
CO2 is irrelevant for the climate. The temperature will go down in the next years because the solar de Vries cycle just had its maximum.
-
martin3818 at 00:42 AM on 15 December 2015The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars
The Paris agreement is so much better than I had feared. I would have popped a bottle of French bubbly except I didn't want to emit more CO2. This is a very important first step.
A votre Santé!
-
CBDunkerson at 22:55 PM on 14 December 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #50
Eclectic, it's better than CO2 emissions not leveling off.
Yep, we still need to see global emissions go down, but leveling off is a step in the right direction. Even the initial pledges just agreed at COP21 should start to drive global reductions in a few years... and then those pledges are supposed to be improved every five years.
-
Eclectic at 21:53 PM on 14 December 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #50
wili @4 re "given the much lauded reports that CO2 emissions stalled this year" [unquote]
I feel distinctly uneasy about your description of "stalled" emissions. Were you meaning that CO2 emissions stalled, as in a plane stalling in mid-air? Surely not ~ since that would imply an actual reduction of emission rate.
If you meant a levelling of emission rate, then that is very far from comforting, since that is another way of saying that our buildup of (total) emitted CO2 is still rising rapidly.
-
RedBaron at 20:33 PM on 14 December 2015How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
@saileshrao
Preface false
1 false the 52.8 GtC number does not even appear in your source. Even if it did, the way you phrased it shows ignorance of the fact 60-80% of the biomass of grasslands is below ground, and 30% of the total products of photosynthesis is root exudates that do not become part of the biomass either above or below, instead directly pumping these carbon compounds directly into the soil to feed the symbiotic soil food web.
2 false
You don't understand my point because you don't understand how the biosphere cycles carbon, making your recommendations, like most vegan recommendations, highly dangerous and potentially very harmfull. Yes fires are part of certain biomes, they are not normally part of a rainforest biome. Fires where part of the natural biome do not represent part of AGW due to the fact they recycle active cabon, not stable carbon. One reason the majority of biomass in a grassland subject to perioding fires is below ground, safe from fire unless too frequent. But your proposal identifies above ground biomass as sequestered carbon, it may in some cases, but actually it is active carbon, not stable carbon. It really isn't sequestered except temporarily. So this is why these biomes reach a "saturation" point upon maturity.
Further, to gain a better understanding of the ruminant's function in a biome read your own source particularly this:
"N is a limiting nutrient for plant growth in mid- and
high-latitude regions (Vitousek & Howarth, 1991). In tropical
regions, N is not considered a limiting nutrient,
because the warmer and wetter tropical climate enhances
N mineralization in soils (Vitousek & Howarth, 1991;
Cleveland & Townsend, 2006) and biological N fixation is
high (Yang et al., 2009)."The ecosystem function of that rumen is to provide the "warmer wetter" environment needed to increase mineralizaton. Without it external fossil fuel nitrogen is required to prevent nitrogen limiting. AND Haber process nitrogen besides being it's own missions source, also significantly negatively impacts soil total biota and diversity. That's why more is needed, not less. Of course there is a limit. You can overgraze too. But up to the limit of overgrazing, more, not less, is needed. Keeping in mind overgrazing is a function of time, not numbers of animals. I already explained previously how overgrazing actually forces a reduction of numbers.
-
MA Rodger at 20:28 PM on 14 December 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #50
wili @4.
CO2 emisions were rising at something like 200Mt(C) a year. If the rate levels off to zero, that would convert into a drop in atmospheric CO2 by 0.05ppm(v) within the measured annual increase of some 2.1ppm+/-0.64ppm(2sd).
Mind, cutting emissions by 200Mt(C) a year every year, which will still not be immediately noticable in terms of atmospheric levels (possibly 5 or so years to do than), would reduce emissions to zero in 50 years, so it isn't a million miles from the required cuts.
-
saileshrao at 17:47 PM on 14 December 2015How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
RedBaron #141:
Our objective should be to restore biodiversity, reverse desertification and heal the climate, all simultaneously as our proposed solution aims to do. Holistic management doesn't aim to do that. Besides,
1. Even if a hypothetical "holistically managed" grassland could sequester more carbon than grassland that is otherwise managed, the fact is that as of 2014, ALL grasslands and pasturelands on earth, put together, contained 52.8 GtC in soil + above ground biomass, according to the Integrated Science Assessment Model (ISAM).
2. In holistically managed livestock production, the livestock biomass is periodically being removed from the land, eaten and flushed into the ocean, thereby constantly depleting nutrients from the land. Such one-way nutrient removal is unsustainable.The numbers we obtain from ISAM comprise both above ground and soil carbon. Therefore, I don't understand your point:
"However, the problem with using the 292.7 GtC number is firstly much of that is above ground biomass and not really sequestered in the long term stabile carbon cycle yet."Typically, at maturity, carbon sequesters in the soil and above ground in fixed ratios depending upon the forest biome. Are you suggesting that above ground carbon in a native forest is "not stable"? Is that because they could catch fire? If so, I refer you to Chad Hanson's work showing how fires are an integral part of certain native forest biomes and that they have negligible impact on the long-term and even short-term carbon sequestration. Please see, for e.g., here.
-
RedBaron at 15:56 PM on 14 December 2015How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?
@sailesshrao,
I downloaded the chart. Doesn't really answer all my questions about how the data was obtained. on #119 above, I show a source that measured changes similar to your source #139.
Impacts were greater in woodland and grassland biomes than in forest, desert, rain forest, or shrubland biomes
Now of course that study was not the abandoned tropical (rain) forest land that your study post #139 was about. Also they are not exactly the same as silver et al measured biomass and included that, whereas Conant et al was soil carbon. But I do think comparing them can be useful in understanding a few things. Look at your source: "faster rates during the first 20 years" and"soil carbon accumulates faster on sites that were cleared but not developed, and on pasture sites."
and think what is going on. Planted trees into either of these means for the first several years, there are grasses/forbs between the young trees, and there is why the soil carbon was increasing faster. Later the new forest canopy matures, closes and the grassland dies. Then the main mode of soil carbon accumulation changes to litter on top of the soil and slows.
Nevertheless in wet and moist tropical climates the above ground biomass accumulation is quite impressive, 6.2 Mg ha−1 yr−1 during the first 20 years of succession! However the soil sequestration potential of proper managed grassland, opposed to the abandoned pastures used in the study, is double to triple the rate of the best reforestation methods. 1.30 Mg carbon ha−1 yr−1 vs 3.04 Mg C·ha−1 yr−1
This suggests that in areas where tropical forests were subject to slash and burn, a successional strategy can be employed. Starting with grassland pasture to stabilise the soil and then succeeding to the native tropical forest and/or a permiculture style multi species food forest for those communities that can't afford to reduce food production.
I know of tropical reforest projects that forgot the importance of keeping the grasses cycled with ruminants, and decades of wonderful work destroyed by wildfire. All that above ground biomass sequestered carbon released at once. But if they had known about the function of the ruminant in the biome, this likely would not have happened. A few more years and the canopy would have closed and the risk of wildfire significantly reduced.
Temporate and dry tropical areas a bit different, but the basic strategy is the same. Large areas here are grassland/savanna in their top successional stage. obviously in those areas planting a forest is counter productive and to manage this land properly requires a ruminant herbivore to cycle large quantities of above ground biomass, feeding all the soil food web in the process. But in areas where forest is the top successional state, the same strategy can be employed as above. It just takes longer, going from grassland to savanna to woods to forest step by step, the first three steps requiring grazers to properly manage the transistion.
The advantages are twofold. One you do produce food for human nutritional needs, and two by starting with a properly managed grassland first, soils are stabilised and if fire should impact, the soil sequestered carbon is still there allowing fast regrowth.
However, the problem with using the 292.7 GtC number is firstly much of that is above ground biomass and not really sequestered in the long term stabile carbon cycle yet. Also it assumeS grassland sequestration is zero when actually under the right conditions even larger than forest sequestration already. In certain conditions that change from pasture to forest can actually be a net reduction in sequestration rate. Each has its advantages, but in differing locals and climatic conditions. So you don't need to do one or the other, but instead a blend of both. And it likely wont be anywhere near 292.7 GtC unless grassland restoration is also included. You do need livestock for that.
I will link an interview with John D Liu because he is a research fellow specialising in ecosystem recovery and once he held a similar stance as you, but later after looking at the evidence changed his views.
John D Liu talks about Allan Savory & Holistic Management
Prev 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 Next
