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bozzza at 12:57 PM on 13 August 2015Geoengineering is ‘no substitute’ for cutting emissions, new studies show
The trouble with comment no.2 is that there is no recognition of what the word 'cost' means. Governments release a money supply that allows costs to be recognised by the exchange of said money supply.
Governments also release carbon emissions by allowing certain types of economic exchange to be realised with the aformentioned,and now famous, money supply. In the end Governments are responsible and that means us if we do infact live in representative democracy...
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davidsanger at 12:31 PM on 13 August 20152015 global temperatures are right in line with climate model predictions
Thanks Jos for showing the "sceptic" forecasts which have shown to be so far off the mark. It would be helpful to keep track of them all. All these "global cooling" predictions are just fantasy.
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Wol at 10:45 AM on 13 August 2015Geoengineering is ‘no substitute’ for cutting emissions, new studies show
@ #2: I'm not entirely convinced that end user payments - or any intermediary ones, for that matter - are wholly effective in the long run. We have become so used to present levels of energy use that increasing the cost rapidly leads to increases in incomes to compensate, bringing us back to square one.
One thing that is rarely hammered home in this whole "debate" with the man in the street (who is not particularly well informed) is that there is to all intents and purposes a certain amount of carbon in/on the planet. Over millenia prior to the industrial revolution and after billions of years of evolution this amount of carbon reached a balance in the atmosphere. What has happened since the 1800s is that hundreds of millions of years' worth of carbon has been released from that locked up underground in the blink of an eye, altering the entire balanced system.
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mancan18 at 08:25 AM on 13 August 2015The 1C Milestone
Informative article Rob. Thanks.
As climate scientists continue to focus their studies on rising carbon dioxide emissions, rising temperatures and the climate impacts that are and will result in from these increases, there appears to be very little discussion on the future energy needs of the planet. According to Seth B Darling and Douglas L Sisterson in their book "How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate" the energy history of the planet in the last half-century is that in 1950 around 3 TW (terawatts) of energy was consumed globally. In 1990, this had increased to around 12 TW of energy that was consumed globally. Today we consume around 18 TW of energy globally. By 2050, the projected energy needs will increase to about 30 TW, nearly double todays. Considering that 83% of our energy currently comes from burning fossil fuels, just closing coal fired power stations and reducing forest clearing is not going to reduce emissions to the level that needs to happen to restrict temperature to a 2 degree rise. It's fairly clear that a complete technological change and a huge infrastructure building program in alternative sustainable power generation is required. It also indicates that fossil fuels will need to still be a part of the energy mix well into the future. This will need to happen unless the developed world wishes to condemn the developing world to a permanent state of poverty. The planet will need all forms of energy generation to meet that 30 TW figure. It will also need nuclear as well as solar, wind, thermal, and hydrogen. It does not need deniers and skeptics getting in the way of what needs to be done. This change in the energy mix needs to happen in a little over 35 years as the world's population rises to over 10 billion people.
Aspirational aims, like those articulated for the Apollo program, are essential, but that aspiration needs to be translated into developing more efficient technology (power, transport, industrial and consumer) if we are realistically going to restrict the temperature rise to under 2 degrees. Unfortunately, I don't see that required technological transformation occurring at the rates that are needed. We have already wasted 25 years arguing wiith deniers since the whole global warming issue came to the forefront in the 1990s. We cannot afford to waste another 25 years if we are to have any chance. Not only do projected temperature rises and rising emissions need to be part of the limit to a 2 degree rise discussion, future energy requirements also need to be a part.
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JosHagelaars at 07:34 AM on 13 August 20152015 global temperatures are right in line with climate model predictions
I came to the same conclusion with the same graphs:
https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/warm-2015-and-model-data-comparisons/In that post I also added a comparison of global temperatures with a few ‘sceptic forecasts’ from "Die Kalte Sonne", Scafetta and Easterbrook.
Dutch version here:
https://klimaatverandering.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/een-warm-2015-en-modelvergelijkingenprognoses/Regards,
JosModerator Response:[PS] Fixed links. Please use the link button in the comment editor in future.
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bwilson4web at 07:24 AM on 13 August 20152015 global temperatures are right in line with climate model predictions
Sorry, I hit "Submit" too early. Please delete my earlier post.
I've noticed some of our 'priuschat', climate deniers really enjoy claiming 'the models are wrong'. Showing that the models and data sources are being fixed seems to confuse 'em.
Lately, they've also been beating the 'paleo-record' drum. So it turns out the "Law Dome" ice record has CO{2} data that overlaps Maua Loa and that seems to have confounded them too. We used a log time-scale to show everything. The 'paleo' deniers are using a linear time-scale which hides the recent data . . . as if it doesn't matter.
Just sharing tricks of the trade.
Bob Wilson, Huntsville, AL
Moderator Response:[RH] Please try to keep image down to 500px.
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bozzza at 04:16 AM on 13 August 2015The 1C Milestone
@ 12 , 440 ppm is locked in and acknowledged by the solar thermal scientists of the world as impossible to not surpass... and that was years ago ! The reference actually questions whether it is possible to go over and then come back under the 440 ppm level and seems to say the science hasn't quite been worked out on that specific question... therefore making your specific question a more known , um, .... answerable entity?
Specifically I refer to a statement by [edit] DR DAVID MILLS [edit] Dr. David Mills but cannot find the reference on the youtube at the moment which I (rewatched many times I can assure you) will post for your reference when I find it.
A well defined problem is half answered: nice, specific question!!
Moderator Response:[RH] Please avoid use of all caps. Thx.
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bozzza at 04:05 AM on 13 August 2015Geoengineering is ‘no substitute’ for cutting emissions, new studies show
Dear no2: can I join your pirate ship that won't last very long: please?
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bozzza at 04:02 AM on 13 August 2015Geoengineering is ‘no substitute’ for cutting emissions, new studies show
Dear no2 comment,
Do you even know what sort of legalised behemoth fossil fuels are? These are legalised entities: without governments they don't exist and you actually think they have a birthright to extract sovereignised resource?
(Do you believe in pirates or something???)
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:32 AM on 13 August 2015The 1C Milestone
Most people who are knowledgeable about climate change I think are very aware that 2C in not a fixed point relative to where bad things start happening. It merely provides a point by which we can measure our progress. Think of it like a speed limit on the highway. You don't instantly crash and kill people if you go over the speed limit, nor if you drive just under the speed limit are you guaranteed to be completely safe.
I specifically chose that Stephen Schneider quote because it demonstrates that tipping points are more of a continuum of accumulating problems. But I do think that the Eemian provides some relative measure. If we can hold temperature rise to 2C, then that is essentially the planet we are bequeathing to future generations.
We will have made this transition from Holocene to Eemian-like Anthropocene as an incredibly abrupt shift relative to natural system, and that is going to impose a large shock on the natural systems that sustain us. There will be a lot of adaptation that has to take place just for 2C.
When we start talking 3C, 4C or even 5C down the road... that's an entirely different ballgame. That's tantamount to getting out on the highway and trying to drive double the speed limit.
I would put it this way: "Safe" ≠ "benign."
Below 2C is not benign. Below 1.5C is not benign. We have already imposed serious challenges on future generations with emissions to date. To me, the question is, how much human suffering of future generations can we avoid?
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ranyl at 23:32 PM on 12 August 2015The 1C Milestone
New York needs moving within the next 100 years if Hansen is right abotu sea level rise, is anyone actually planning for it?
300ppm, means ~1-1.5C above pre-industrial, the range we are going to be in once this 2015 large EL-Nino returns the heat, remember 2015 is the 1997 equivalent, 2016 will the 1998 one. And that means eventual sea level rise of 6-9m, as we aren't getting down to 300ppm anytime in the next several 1000's of years.
Also note that these models claiming to give us a carbon budget, not only don't include permafrost CO2 and methane releases (the ones that do, keep CO2 above 400ppm even if all CO2 emissions stopped in 2010), also don't include forest fires, or the CO2 releases when the earth warms and several aspects that reduce the CO2 fertilization effect.
And if you take 1.5C as safe, the budget is already blown.
Remember that ~1W of forcing is being masked by SO2 and if fossil fuel use cease that also comes back into play, and studies looking just at that, with total CO2 emission stopping find temperature rises ~1.5-2C by 2050 anyway.
RCP 2.6 = 420-450ppm CO2 by 2100 and then on-going.
Not sure what the CO2e is, but at present that is ~460-470ppm.
420-450ppm is Miocene warm period levels last seen 15 million years, ago, world 4-6C hotter, sea levels 30-40m higher.
You tend to get ~60-80% of that warming in 100 years.
Remember 300ppm means 6-9m sea level rise!
It seems the arguments about a carbon budegt are more about pretendign we carry on emitting carbon until they invent techologies to take it out the air, rather than rationalising the sitaution.
Wonder what all these hat waves this year are doing for the carbon emissions from the biopshere in these areas?
Moderator Response:[JH] Excessive white space removed.
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bvangerven at 22:34 PM on 12 August 2015Geoengineering is ‘no substitute’ for cutting emissions, new studies show
A question that should be asked more often in the climate debate is: who is going to pay for this ? I even think it is a kind of denial that this question so seldom pops up. Perhaps it is until now even the greatest feat of fossil fuel companies that they have succeeded in suppressing that question. The answer should actually be: the polluter will pay, no matter what. If we choose to tackle the climate problem: the polluter will pay to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere. If we choose not to do anything about climate change: the polluter will pay for all catastrophes caused by his actions in the next centuries. (Before I am attacked from all sides let me assure you: I don’t think there is a REAL choice. But fossil fuel companies should realize that those are the 2 options they are facing).
Let’s calculate the carbon tax necessary to cover the costs of removing all emitted CO2 from the atmosphere.
A car using 5 liter diesel fuel per 100 km emits 132 g CO2 per km.
At the current price of 1,1 €/liter diesel fuel (current price in Belgium)
the driving costs are: 5/100*1.1 = 0.055 € per km
So, how much more expensive would diesel fuel become if we had to pay for the removal of the CO2 from the atmosphere (taking into account the estimate of 600 $, or 500 € per ton CO2 ?)
Extra cost : 500* 132/1000000 = 0.066 € per km.
So the price of diesel fuel would more than double. And the price of most, if not all consumer products would go up as well.
Still, I think it makes sense to introduce a worldwide carbon tax.After all, what is the alternative ? Taking the money necessary to fight climate change straight from the taxpayers ? Trying to sell 25 billion tonnes of captured CO2 to greenhouse owners and carbonated beverages producers ?
Of course, we don’t want to destroy the economy. So the carbon tax should start low and increase gradually year after year. This gives both companies and people the time to adapt. Luckily the purpose of the carbon tax is not really to fund an expensive technology to remove CO2 from the air (although it can be used for that purpose). The actual goal is to level the playing field between fossil fuel and renewables and speed up the development and adoption of low-carbon or zero-carbon technologies.
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bozzza at 18:40 PM on 12 August 2015The 1C Milestone
2c is an agreed target: how else do you propose to get an agreed target for the whole world? Ever heard of groupthink?
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TonyW at 17:30 PM on 12 August 2015The 1C Milestone
Yes, 2C is something of an arbitrary limit and I don't know why it's gained an almost mythical status; that under 2C is safe and over 2C is unsafe. The fact is that we are already seeing impacts from 1C. With more in the pipeline, it looks like we are already in the dangerous zone. James Hansen, et al (2013) suggest that 1C is the dangerous limit. This isn't a milestone, we're actually at the dangerous level now.
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ianw01 at 04:34 AM on 12 August 2015Geoengineering is ‘no substitute’ for cutting emissions, new studies show
Lets see ... at $600/tonne (ref), CDR25 would cost $1.5x1013/year, and CDR5 would be "only" $3x1012/year.
I hope there are some big cost reductions coming in CDR.
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ubrew12 at 03:55 AM on 12 August 2015The 1C Milestone
We know that at 400ppm, equilibrium sea level is 25m (75 ft) above current sea level, due to melting ice sheets. I read that at 400ppm, in equilibrium the Alpine glaciers would still lose half their mass. So, its not unreasonable to expect that at 400ppm, in equilibrium, the permafrost would vent half its carbon. So, as there is a graph that indicates what equilibrium sea level pertains to what CO2 level, it would be useful to have a graph that indicates what equilibrium level of permafrost carbon vented pertains to what CO2 level. With such information, the rest becomes a question for kinetics: how fast would this carbon be vented?
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MA Rodger at 02:28 AM on 12 August 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
Antarctic ice loss is certainly accelerating. A plot of the rate of change of mass balance from the data graphed below (two clicks down the link) perhaps is starting to show an increase in that acceleration, LINK , although it is early days for anything more than speculation.
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CBDunkerson at 01:00 AM on 12 August 2015The 1C Milestone
There and Back Again?
To me, this sounds like you're saying our only hope of avoiding the 2C climate change limit is... Bilbo Baggins. :]
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Antarctica is gaining ice
renbuild1 - Geometric and exponential growth rates are not our friend here. We have to take acceleration into account.
Antarctic Ice Mass
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michael sweet at 22:59 PM on 11 August 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
renbuild1,
Your math would be correct if the rate of melt were not rising. Since the rate of melt is measured to be increasing rapidly, it will take much less than 125 years for 1 inch of melt. Recent measurements in West Antarctic indicate that the ice sheet there has passed its tippiing point. Dr. Ringot, an Antarctic and Greenland specialist and coauthor on Hansen's recent paper on sea level rise, claimed that their data indicated that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone would melt in decades to centuries with a sea level rise of at least 10 feet. Decades to centuries is a large range, but 10 years ago the same scientists were saying thousands of years for the sheet to melt. This melt increase will occur in a non linear manner. How much risk are you willing to take that it will not be decades?? Obviously Dr. Ringot feels it is possible or he would not have coauthored Hansen's paper. 10 feet of sea level rise would wipe out all of south and east Florida.
When processes are known to be increasing rapidly it is inappropriate to extrapolate past melt rates far into the future. Many things are hard to predict, especially the future.
The current rate of sea level rise from all sources is 3-3.5 mm/year. It is increasing. How much sea level rise is acceptable? In Tampa, Florida, where I live, we just had a flood where many homes reportedly had 2-19 inches of water inside. Since 9 inches of sea level rise has been measured in Florida, many of those homes would not have flooded without sea level rise. How much did AGW contribute to the extraordinary rain? At least some. This is damage caused today by AGW. It will only increase in the future.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 13:38 PM on 11 August 2015The 1C Milestone
It is important to draw a distinction between methane emissions from permafrost and clathrates - they aren't the same thing.
There are huge swathes of the Arctic where permafrost melt has started and methane emissions are rising. So far the impact of that s small but likely to increase. By how much?
A study earlier this year looked at thawing permarost in controlled conditions over, if I recall, 12 years and measuring the gases produced. Their results suggest that by the second half of tis century emissions rom permafrost might be the equivalent of current US emssions. So even if we went to zero emssions, concentrations would keep climbing slowly from that source.
So this is serious in terms of our ability to stabilise CO2 concentrations. But not the methane bomb some fear. More of a slow motion methane fizzer.
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bozzza at 11:57 AM on 11 August 2015The 1C Milestone
@ One Planet Only Forever, this same logic applies to Bjorn Lomborgs attempt at trying to convince the world that fossil fuels should be allowed to warm our earth by 3C instead of 2C...
Limits, or more succinctly "The slippery slope" styles of argumentation ,are coming whereby black is white and there is apparently no point doing anything.
Resource bottlenecks are the first predicted consequence of panic. The trouble is the vested interests will argue this is good for employment yadda yadda yadda...
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PhilippeChantreau at 10:54 AM on 11 August 20152015 Arctic melting season won't break records, but could wipe the 'recovery'
Looking at the Cryosphere Today picture has me quite worried. Record or not, who cares? We still have over a month of melting and the truly solid cover (80% or more) has shrunk to a 3 amoeba shaped web that looks less resilient than the solid island that could be seen at the same time in 2012. I find especially worrisome that there is now so much 70% and below cover bewtween the Northern Canadian coasts and Greenland coasts and the more solid coverage farther North. The solid ice island is loosing its anchors.
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Andy Skuce at 10:15 AM on 11 August 2015The 1C Milestone
TomR: Permafrost emissions are not included in current climate models and other terrestrial biosphere feedbacks that are modelled may have optimistic assumptions. I wrote a piece on this recently. There's a link at the end to a more detailed SkS piece on the subject. A rough estimate is that our carbon budgets may be about 25% overestimated.
I do not believe, however, that a methane clathrate emergency is upon us. As part of the MOOC we ran a few months ago, I did a short video lecture on this.
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:57 AM on 11 August 2015The 1C Milestone
TomR... Currently most researchers are saying permafrost and methane clathrates are not likely to be an issue. I'm definitely not on board with the near-term extinction folks like Guy McPherson.
When this issue comes up I usually point people to a series of videos that Peter Sinclair produced called "The Methane Bomb Squad."
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TomR at 06:19 AM on 11 August 2015The 1C Milestone
Good article and comments. However, I am much more realistic or pessimistic than Rob, unless only 50% of the human population dying due to climate change is optimism. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think most models take into account the certain to occur but unknown impact of the melting of the world's permafrost and methane clathrates. Also, I have read that a significant part of the impact of CO2 on warming occurs even after the first 85 years.
I follow many of the scientific global warming websites. The one thing that seems missing is personally responsibility for one's own emissions. The idea that one's own emissions don't really count seems pervasive or at least ignored. Sierra Club still extensively advertises Club trecks to Africa, Asia, and beyond. In contrast, Berners-Lee in his carbon footprint book on everything "How Bad Are Bananas?" guesstimates that for every 150 tons of emissions, one more human is likely to die. By that calculation, one pound of CO2 is equal to about one hour of human life. I actually think about that when deciding where to exercise, how often to go shopping, whether I should drive 100 miles to Pittsburgh to protest with 350.org, etc.
I like Pope Francis and others emphasizing the immorality of destroying life through avoidable global warming emissions. If the above is roughly correct, the average American is killing one person every ten years with his emissions. He is guilty of negligent manslaughter, even reckless manslaughter.
Carbon dioxide molecules are like little bullets fired into the air. They don't kill anyone at first, but over decades they will kill huge numbers of humans as well as plant and animal life. I think that we lead in part by example. I personally hope to be carbon negative within the year by finally buying a low cost Nissan Leaf and installing at least 10,000 watts of solar panels so I can feed into the grid more energy than I use even including the embodied footprints of my vegan food, my home, and possessions, as well as my share of health care, government, and other societal functions.
I would like to see scientific papers attempting to quantify the impact on human death. I have seen papers on animal extinction, on air pollution on human life, etc., but never on the long-term impact of global warming on global food production and starvation. Hansen once speculated that the Earth will only be able to support 1 billion humans. How many people will die with RCP 4.5? I fear 50%
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:39 AM on 11 August 2015The 1C Milestone
mike Roddy,
I agree. It is important to always mention that an increase beyond 1.5 C was, and continues to be, a concern.
A 2.0 C increase limit only came about recently when global leaders had to admit that success of resistance by those who do not care to reduce the benefit they can get away with had resulted in a lack of reduction of unacceptable activity by already fortunate people which made the 1.5 C limit virtually unachievable.
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renbuild1 at 04:04 AM on 11 August 2015Antarctica is gaining ice
"Because a reduction in mass of 360 Gt/year represents an annual global-average sea level rise of 1 mm, these estimates equate to an increase in global-average sea levels by 0.19 mm/yr."
Is my math correct in interpreting this statement to mean that it will take five years to raise sea level 1 mm and 125 years to raise sea level 1 inch? Is the 360 GT per year just from Antarctic land ice or global land ice>
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mike roddy at 01:45 AM on 11 August 2015The 1C Milestone
Thanks for this, Rob, people are going to be referring to these clarifications in the future.
The other issue of course is that 2C is hardly a safe threshold, as you know. During the Emian sea level rise was enormous, and anything close to that level will flood the world's major cities. When Hansen's paper finishes being peer reviewed, let's hope it stimulates a discussion over working toward a new, safer baseline. Otherwise, if 2C spells disaster and hardship, that information needs to be communicated, and acted upon.
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bozzza at 18:53 PM on 10 August 2015Statistics says the long-term global warming trend continues
..cool, cheers!
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Lloyd Flack at 17:02 PM on 10 August 2015Statistics says the long-term global warming trend continues
You fit piecewise splines joined together with constraints on their parameters. You make a tradeoff between smoothness and fit when doing this. The smoother the fit the fewer parametes you use to make that fit. You calculate the degrees of freedom that you use to make the fit. You calculate the change in the log of the likelihood and use it and the degrees of freedom to carry out a chi-squared test of the effect of the non linear smoother terms.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:25 AM on 10 August 2015How This El Niño Is And Isn’t Like 1997
denisaf,
What I presented is nothing really new. It is fundamentally the basis for the Kyoto Accord, the more fortunate biggest benfitters to date from the burning of fossil fuels leading the reduction of benefitting from burning and paying the mst to address the consequences of the burning impacts that have already been accumulated.
What may be new is the focus on individuals rather than nations. Nations are collectives of a variety of types of individuals. The unacceptable trouble-makers exist in all the nations, just to different degrees. And the requirement of the global community is for every nation to effectively deal with the trouble-makers in their nation.
The appreciation that certain individuals and certain attitudes, not certain nations, are the real problem will help focus efforts more effectively.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:07 AM on 10 August 2015How This El Niño Is And Isn’t Like 1997
denisaf,
I agree. The ones who currently get the most personal benefit from the burning of fossil fuels must be taxed proprotionately with the benefit they get from the burning of fossil fuels. And that tax money needs to be directed to expenditures that are certain to benefit humanity by addressing the results of the impacts of the unacceptable way they are benefiting.
And the real challenge has to be a requirement that those who benefit the most from the burning, the likes of the Koch brothers be 'required', in addition to the tax they must pay, to be the most significant promoters, in actions including marketing, of the pursuit of the better understanding of the actual impacts of their pursuits. And they have to be the strongest proponents of the changes that better understanding points to, both the reduction of harm and the measures that are 'certain' to address the harm of the activities that must be rapidly curtailed.
And if those getting the most benefit from the burning can be shown to not be focused on the development of that proper better understanding or the implementation of what that understanding indicates is required, including better understanding in the general population, then they must face rapid and serious penalty, prison and financial to minimize their unacceptable influence.
And those measures need to be understood to be a transition as the damaging unsustainable pursuits that have been encouraged to develop by the current fatally flawed socioeconomic system, which is based too heavily on popularity and profit and which fails miserably at keeping those who do not really care about how their pursuits may affect others, from succeeding.
Terrorists are not the only threat to the future of humanity. And most terrorists are likely the result of successful unacceptable pursuits of profit by already more fortunate people - the real root trouble-makers.
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denisaf at 20:29 PM on 9 August 2015How This El Niño Is And Isn’t Like 1997
This research scientist appreciates the eforts of climatologists in providing insight into aspects of how the climate operates by obtaining measurements to go with their understanding. However widespread understanding by politicians and the public of the fact that irreversible rapid climate change and ocean acidification is under way is only slowly growing. Discussion about measures to reduce the rate of emissions from fossil fuels usage is slowly gaining momentum even though there is little recognition that all that can do is slow down the increasing severity of climate change and ocean acidification. There should be more emphasis on measures to cope with sea level rise and more storms, droughts, floods and wild fires togther with the impact on food production and human health.
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Tom Curtis at 09:27 AM on 9 August 2015How This El Niño Is And Isn’t Like 1997
How little context the deniers will look at.
Fairoakien @1:
1) The Christmas 1955 storm was due to a jet stream event according to your own source. Ergo it was a localized event and not comparable to the El Nino's of 1983 and 1998. They had world wide impacts, although only the US impacts are mentioned above, including "January and February 1998 were the wettest and warmest first two months to a year for the contiguous U.S. in the 104-year record at that time", not just a limited region in Northern California and areas immediately east of that.
2) In any event, the storm of 1955 brought a peak 9.31 inches of rain in a 24 hour period in Blue Canyon. That record has since been exceeded for December in 1964 (9.33 inches) and for the year in January of 1984 (10.1 inches). The later is unexpected in that December is normally wetter than January in Blue Canyon.
So what the "experts forgot" was only a localized storm when they were discussing US wide effects, and a storm which has since been exceeded, with the current record for the location of peak precipitation for the storm of 1955, in the El Nino year of 1984 (on some indices, a stronger El Nino year than 1998). Perhaps they had not forgotten it at all, but were merely disinclined to mention irrelevant data.
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Fairoakien at 08:33 AM on 9 August 2015How This El Niño Is And Isn’t Like 1997
How little history the experts forget. Christmas 1955 was the strom of the century.
A series of storms belted the mountains. Ten to 13 inches of precipitation fell in one 3-day period. Balmy temperatures raised the snow level to 9,000 feet as the incessant rain saturated the ground and melted much of the region's promising, 3-foot snow pack.
Folsom dam just completed that year was to take 3 years to fill, filled in just that one winter.- See more at: http://tahoetopia.com/news/christmas-flood-1955-storm-century#sthash.N9giuHaO.dpuf
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bozzza at 00:50 AM on 9 August 2015Statistics says the long-term global warming trend continues
I'm curious: how do they test for departure from sinusoidality?
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Lloyd Flack at 19:19 PM on 8 August 2015Statistics says the long-term global warming trend continues
The have tested for departures from linearity by fitting change point models and polynmial models. What I wish they had also done was fit a generalized additive model including a smoothing spline or something similar and test its departure from linearity. This gives a smooth curve not of a predetermined form. It is something that I would have tried on such a data set.
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mancan18 at 09:14 AM on 7 August 2015We are the Asteroid - Scientists’ Heighten Concerns About Global Extinctions
Stating that the rate of extinction is 10 times the rate of previous great extinctions may or may not be an exact figure but it certainly indicates that something fairly significant is happening and needs to be taken notice of. It is just another indicator in the many lines of evidence that global warming and climate change is happening. It also seems that the rate of human caused erosion is 10 times the natural erosion rate. When taken with the huge rise in greenhouse gases due to human activity in a relatively short time and the high rate of forest depletion then it should come as no surprise that extinction rates are so high. Unfortunately, no-one seems to have have any idea what that might mean for us as a species. Let alone not completely understanding the Earth as a complete climate system, no-one seems to have a complete understanding of the Earth as a complete ecosystem. We don't know what will happen to us when critical species in the food chain that supports us disappears. Archeology and palaeontology studies all indicate that whenever humans settled an area of the planet without a human presence then the megafauna disappeared in a relatively short time. Also, this extinction was not all necessarily due to hunting but due to the human impact on their existing supporting ecosystem. Now that the impact of our activities is global, so if the past is any indication, rather than give deniers/skeptics comfort, it should give pause to all of us until we completely understand what is going on.
Acting on climate change is the great challenge. It means a change in the technology we use to generate power and it means a change in the fundamental way market economies operate. In the past, technological changes that have had a significant impact on human society and made our lives better, like motor cars, electricity, aircraft, jet airliners personal computers, mobile phones and other technologies now taken for granted, seem to have taken around 20 or 30 years to become fully integrated into mainstream society. This integration was initially driven by the well-off (and the military) choosing to buy the earlier versions of the technology, because it was trendy and something new to investigate. Because the well-off could afford the higher initial prices, it allowed the businesses to further develop the technology and reduce costs so that the technology could be afforded by the rest of society. The technology required to make the U turn needed to alleviate the worst aspects of climate change needs to be implemented in a very short time period. This will not necessarily occur in the needed time by simply waiting for the well-off to generate the necessary demand required to drive down costs and allow the needed technology to penetrate main stream society. I'm sure that if more people could afford it, more would choose renewables as their main source of power and it would become mainstream. Unfortunately, climate change is not necessarily seen as trendy by many of those who can afford to actually do something about it.
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bozzza at 06:31 AM on 7 August 2015Charles Koch gets some climate science right, but economics wrong
Certainly. Trying to look at it logically I would have to say that obfuscation is a necessary skill- whatever the cost- in the business of making money because solid rationale (meaning the numbers) would be needed before any major reinvestment in plant and material or other general major change in plans.
Thus the divestment game is where it's at...
Only solid numbers are going to convince the business community to act. As a greenie I would argue that may be too late of course so the battle is getting the numbers together. In this way business versus science is like iron sharpening iron... there is a solution to all our woes it's just the politics of obfuscation does nuts in, lol!
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Rob Honeycutt at 05:32 AM on 7 August 2015Charles Koch gets some climate science right, but economics wrong
bozzza... I've always had the sense that they've merely surrounded themselves with people who tell them what they want to hear. It's a well-funded form of confirmation bias.
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bozzza at 04:28 AM on 7 August 2015Charles Koch gets some climate science right, but economics wrong
It's all in the use of 'mealy-mouthed' language. People like that will argue black is white if you give them the time to do it. It's called indirect argument and it is employed to confuse...
He's in a psychosis called greed!
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veleroazul at 03:13 AM on 7 August 2015We are the Asteroid - Scientists’ Heighten Concerns About Global Extinctions
The truth is that if the planet warms by 7.2 ° C to 8 ° C, then a mass extinction of all species would occur, including our species.
If the planet warms 2ºC would enter into an irreversible cycle, but in reality we are in an irreversible cycle. I mean, the disappearance of the Arctic and has a huge influence on the destabilization of clathrates located bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
Our impact, I'm not a demagogue or want to be a VIP person, our presence is like the impact of a large meteorite. We are influencing anturales cycles of all components of the Earth and in all components of its atmosphere. It decreases oxygen increases the presence of CO2 and other gases and chemicals that have never existed until humans appeared it shows.
I was fascinated by the space race and the vital support needed by the astronauts in space. Astronauts need complex supports to live in space, are some supports without which it would be impossible to survive.
As the atmosphere of the planet Earth has been generated over millions of years. Its nitrogen is derived from living things, there was nitrogen if no living organisms that generate it, just as there would be no oxygen. Our atmosphere would be much finer.
But now, we are destroying our life support in the only planet where we can live. No other planet. Nitrogen decreases, increase the CO2 and decreases oxygen and increased concentrations around and diminish the other, to the extent reach us poison.
The reality is that if we ourselves disappear.
If the planet warms 2 ° C, then the entire surface of Greenland would enter into merger. 7ºC if heated, all the ice on the planet would enter into merger. Over time the oceanic conveyor belt will stop and the ocean is stratified.
We will see major changes in the Gulf Stream, of course. Warming already affecting the depths of the Arctic Ocean in the area and as methane clathrates lso that area is issued. Also they are increasing methane emissions in Antarctica, but not much.
And most troubling of this is that as we hope biblical migrations, we believe that much dessestabilizaran governments to deal with a chaotic situaicones aprte by overcrowding in itself, and by climate changeModerator Response:[RH] Starting at the point where I've struck as warning, you need to support your claims with citations to actual research.
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ubrew12 at 02:12 AM on 7 August 2015Charles Koch gets some climate science right, but economics wrong
Charles Koch: "There’s a big debate on that"
You would know. You paid for it.
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Tristan at 01:12 AM on 7 August 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #31
Granted it's unlikely to see the light of day, but would a plane releasing emissions from even higher in the atmosphere than the typical airliner be even worse than it is at 30,000ft?
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Raenrfm at 00:50 AM on 7 August 2015Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Tom Curtis @ 273, in order to accurately determine whether the co2 leads or lags temperature, should you not be taking the fourier transform of each data set to accurately determine the phase relationship? It just seems to me looking at your graph (casually eyeballing it), looks like there is a slight phase shift with co2 lagging temp.
Moderator Response:[PS] Please do not let this discussion of CO2 lags/leads relationships wander off onto topics discussed in detail on "CO2 lags temperature" or "CO2 increase is natural, not human caused". It is very important to note that Tom has detrended the series because he is looking for change in CO2 in response to a temperature change. Ie Co2 is both a forcing and a feedback. As feedback it does of course lag temperature. Note also that the feedback CO2 is small (8ppm) cf forcing (~100ppm). Please take further discussion to a more appropriate place.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:33 AM on 7 August 2015We are the Asteroid - Scientists’ Heighten Concerns About Global Extinctions
ryland@3,
As I implied, the most unacceptable way of succeeding that can be gotten away with is the most successful in the current socio-economic system because it inappropriately values the easily manipulated popularity of things and uses a fatally flawed limited and distorted monetary measure to determine the value of things.
That system can clearly encourage some people to develop an unacceptable desire to do the least acceptable thing they can get away with. And it has developed a lot of unsustainable perceptions of prosperity. Many people actually are not as well off as they think. They are only able to enjoy things more for a short while by getting away with less acceptable unsustainable ways of behaving.
And as you point out the popularity of getting away with benefiting from unacceptable things is difficult to overcome.
So I agree with you regarding what the problem is. But I am not sure you recognise it as the problem that it is, as the thing that "must be changed". You seem to believe that the perceptions of prosperity among the current more fortunate are deserved and must be allowed until a cheaper better way is developed. I disagree.
The developed cheaper less acceptable ways of benefiting need to be curtailed even if it means that some already fortunate people actually become less fortunate. If the leaders of the moment of a specific nation will not lead toward that required change then global leadership will have to impose measures to induce such leadership to "change their mind and disappoint some of the people in their nation and disappoint the unacceptable ones among the global wealthy and powerful people." Mind you, as others have noted a good life for everyone could develop if the ones who try to get away with less accceptable ways of benefiting are kept from succeeding.
That is actually what is happening. At the highest levels the battle is being fought between those who recognise the problem and recognise who the trouble-makers are, and the trouble-makers (those who want to prolong the support and power they get from the trouble-makers). And there clearly is no future for the successes of the second group. They can only benefit for a short time while they support the creation of more problems that the people they are fighting against will have to deal with.
And the better understanding of developing climate science and all the other developing better understanding of the unacceptability of the trouble-makers will eventually win. But the longer it takes because of the ease with which manipulative marketing can succeed the more damage that is done by those who are not interested in understanding the unacceptability of their perceived prosperity.
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howardlee at 00:25 AM on 7 August 2015We are the Asteroid - Scientists’ Heighten Concerns About Global Extinctions
ryland @3 Your question about quantifying species loss is a good one. We can subdivide the question into 3 issues: the rates of species loss, calculating that from fossil evidence, and estimating the total number of species inhabiting the planet.
To take the last point first, the idea that we still have not identified all the species that exist today, Bill Bryson addressed this eloquently in his book "A short history of nearly everything" when he described scientists finding new species of bacteria just by scooping soil from their back yard. Basically, the vast majority of those unknown species will be microbes of one kind or another. To compare modern rates of extinction with those of the past scientists use what is preserved in the fossil record, from microscopic plankton to large animals, and compare the species loss rates today with those of the past.
To take the first 2 points, these have been examined and rexamined by science over time. The best recent summary of this that I am aware of is by Norman Macleod of London's Natural History Museum here (sorry full paper is behind a paywall). His paper summarizes the history of scientists' identification of several episodes when the rate of extinction (as indicated by fossils large and small, in the sea and on land) was much larger than the intervening times, notably work by Norman Newell in 1963. You can plot the extinctions by biological Family, Genus, or species and get slightly different results, but they consistently show several extraordinary eipisodes of biodiversity loss. The "big 5" of these mass extinctions are the end-Ordovician, late-Devonian, end-Permian, end-Triassic, and end-Cretaceous. But there are other less extreme extinction episodes in the fossil record, such as in the Capitanian, Aptian and Cenomanian time periods.
With the exception of the end-Ordovician event, all have been linked to Large Igneous Province events and associate global warming episodes.
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howardlee at 23:53 PM on 6 August 2015We are the Asteroid - Scientists’ Heighten Concerns About Global Extinctions
ryland @3 - to address your last question: In most past mass extinctions volcanic emission of greenhouse gasses drove climate change and ocean acidification, as well as other environmental destruction, leading to mass extinctions.
More detailed explanations can be found here, here and here.
The "volcanic" phenomenon that triggered those catastrophes should not be confused with the kind of volcanic eruptions we see in the modern era or even since humans first evolved. The events associated with abrupt global warming and mass extinctions are known as "Large Igneous Provinces." The most recent LIP was the Columbia River Basalts 16 million years ago - a baby compared to the end-Permian or end-Triassic versions, but still associated with a kick in global warming (although not linked to a mass extinction).
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tmbtx at 23:48 PM on 6 August 2015We are the Asteroid - Scientists’ Heighten Concerns About Global Extinctions
Ryland,
1. There need not necessarily be a drop in standard of living. Investment in R&D could even enhance it while still addressing the climate. Is it a sure thing? Of course not, but the likely drop in standard of living coming due to our impact on the planet is going to be worse.
2. Not knowing everything about every species is entirely different from doing "pure guesswork". True many of these numbers are estimates but they are well informed estimates.
3. Volcanoes or climate change? Not sure what you mean. Volcanic activity like the Siberian or Deccan traps released lots of CO2, as are we. It's not either/or. But "We are a large igneous province" doesn't make as catchy a statement as "We are the asteroid."
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