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Paul Pukite at 04:11 AM on 5 November 2024Climate Risk
Yes, That's the entire charade of Curry's Uncertainty Monster. The uncertainty can go either way, and now that (or if) she has tilted toward a gloomish view, that uncertainty is biting back. We have long realized that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have a ratcheting effect in that once they increase, it's very difficult to reverse due to the difficulty in permamently sequestering CO2. This means the uncertainty is biased toward getting worse, and especially as in"the longer we wait to reach net zero, the worse things will be.". IOW, impossible for things to immediately get better since we require all the FF infrastructure to power us through an energy transition.
Yet, has Curry been saying this for over a decade now? It's possible that she saw the line about "climate will change" and equated that to natural variability, in which case she's been touting that for a long time. So, yes, it's rationalized by her not reading the artiicle.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:58 AM on 5 November 2024Climate Risk
Paul @ 5, 7:
I wouldn't say that Curry has flipped - but I have to admit that I have not being paying a lot of attention to her and I have never had the impression that she has a coherent, logical, consistent position on much related to climate science. She would have to actually hold a position in order to be able to flip away from it. She has a history of broadcasting all sorts of whack-a-doodle stuff (calling it "interesting") - but in a way that she can deny she supported it (or opposed it) when the cards line up.
So, in that tweet, what the heck is she really claiming she has been saying for over a decade now? Only the contents of David Wallace-Wells' tweet, which says little? If you interpret his tweet as saying that there are other factors besides CO2 driving the current warming trend, and stopping CO2 emissions will have little effect, then maybe that fits her history of obfuscation and attacks on climate science as we know it. But is that what David Wallace-Wells really means?
We could try to find David Wallace-Wells' article at The Conversation. Not hard. It's here. Want more detail? The article at The Conversation links to the actual paper it is based on. It is here.
I have not read the paper in detail - it is moderately long and technical - but I can get the gist of it. It certainly does not support any argument that CO2 levels are less important than presented in the IPCC reports and positions. What the paper does seem to present is an argument (from model simulations) that the expected drop in CO2 levels after reaching net zero - due to fast parts of the carbon cycle continuing to remove CO2 - will be offset by other slow feedbacks in the climate system that will cause continued warming.
The paper uses the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator Earth system model (ACCESS-ESM-1.5), which appears to include a number of slow-response feedbacks related to ice, ocean circulation, etc. (The paper provides references that explain that model in more detail, but the details are not apparent from a quick read of the current paper.)
So, the gist of this new paper seems to be that slow feedbacks often not included in many models will make things worse than expected, once net zero is reached. They also indicate that the longer we wait to reach net zero, the worse things will be.
This may fit into Curry's Uncertainty Monster scenario ("See, I told you there were things the models didn't get right!), but it is an uncertainty that will bite us in the posterior regions - not Curry's favoured "everything uncertain will fall to our benefit".
I would not be surprised if Curry hasn't actually read the paper (or maybe even the Conversation article), and just saw what she wanted to see in the tweet - without actually understanding it.
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Paul Pukite at 21:24 PM on 4 November 2024Climate Risk
So Curry has flipped into a "doomer", a term I rarely ever use since I started blogging in 2004 (apart from referencing the Science of Doom blog). Yet, a doomer with a dash of optimism has EXACTLY the same objectives as a climate change activist — the doom portended by the finiteness of fossil fuels is hedged by the transition to alternative renewable sources of energy. Same goals, the only distinction is in how rapid the transition. That's all wrapped in the #NoRegrets strategy.
All we need to do is accuse Curry of having no hope in achieving an energy transition. This should not be diffucult as she has absolutely ZERO credentials in energy engineering. She's now a totally lost soul, unable to keep up.
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MA Rodger at 19:36 PM on 4 November 2024Climate Risk
Paul Pukite @5,
I don't see Judy Curry having flipped.While seeing her apparently agreeing with David Walliace-Wells is remarkable, the agreement is perhaps best seen as another instance of Judy re-defining the words of others. Over the last decade, since the WUWT failed to "change the way you think about natural internal variability" (WUWT=Wyatt's Unified Wave Theory which Judy calls the Stadium Wave), Judy has taken up ambiguity as a means of manufacturing what she calls "a wicked problem" to cloud the climate debate and give room for denialists to flaunt their nonsense.
Her book 'Climate Uncertainty and Risk : Rethinking Our Response' was published last year (a 40-odd page preview HERE) and a few months back she set out the same message at the denialist GWPF's AGM.
The book runs to fifteen chapters and 340 pages. Well hidden within it, Judy sets out her same old message, this from a book review.The need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is much less pressing than the IPCC and the UN contend because of the implausibility of extreme emissions scenarios such as RCP 8.5 and of high values for the climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide (the warming caused by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). Natural variability is likely to slow down the rate of warming over the next few decades, and further time can be bought by targeting greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, which account for up to 45% of human-caused warming.
(Note that the 45% number is wrong. The non-CO2 forcing is no more than 35% and over tha last decade it is down to 26%.) The hidden message from Curry is that her imagined natural climate wobbles have masked the weak nature of human-caused climate change and fooled us all. So we can sit back and enjoy ourselves while we make plans for when all the oil runs out.
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prove we are smart at 06:52 AM on 4 November 20242024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44
First a little thankyou to Sceptical Science for many years ago teaching me the science about Climate Change or as we called it then Global Warming. To also understand the extremes of the earths past climate cycles and their causes was fasinating.
Why we won't mitigate? It's really about the politics-the science was settled a long time ago.
I know I'm one of the lucky ones and also part of the problem. My island continent is liquifying the methane gas and digging up the "ores" at a faster and faster rate for the overseas sales.
Soon again with my adult children who will never afford to live my dream, we will all be hunkered down by candle or duracell light-lost power from a "rare" supercell thunderstorm. We tune in to the eveready powered radio for current news.
So I go to bed early or read for a while, looking at those " Twelve books to read about climate action before the election" highlighted above, I definitely like this one. What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (One World 2024, 496 pages, $34.00) "Visionary farmers and financiers, architects and advocates, help us conjure a flourishing future, one worth the effort it will take". Leave off all the media when the power returns and just keep reading...
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Paul Pukite at 13:04 PM on 2 November 2024Climate Risk
Has Judith Curry flipped into A) a climate alarmist? B) incoherence? C) a Dominionist?
Admitting that global heating will continue for centuries to come.
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BaerbelW at 05:30 AM on 2 November 2024Low-frequency noise from wind turbines harms human health and causes 'wind turbine syndrome'
OPOF @1
Thanks for the heads-up! Our system apparently didn't much like the copied and pasted double-quotes used in the title around "wind turbine syndrome". Fixed it now.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:54 AM on 2 November 2024Low-frequency noise from wind turbines harms human health and causes 'wind turbine syndrome'
The heading and first line of the Climate Myth ... appear to be incorrect or incomplete.
I suggest that the header and first line of the Myth be: "Low-frequency noise from wind turbines harms human health"
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nigelj at 04:29 AM on 30 October 2024Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
M S Sweet, thanks for the detailed and informative comments. That map was a good find. I sometimes dont have much time to explore much detail, but I thought it was an issue worth raising.
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michael sweet at 02:40 AM on 30 October 2024Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
Nigelj:
I found this newspaper article (written by a solar supporter) about solar in Florida (I was surprised that Florida has so much solar. The government is strongly fossil fuel supportive). The article says that utilities are building out solar in Florida because it is the cheapest power, in spite of a lack of government support. It will be interesting to see what happens as solar begins to displace gas in the utility supply (as is currently happening in Texas). Since utilities are leading the way and the gas is imported into Florida the politics will be different from Texas.
Moderate sized (75 MW) generating systems can be easily built in Florida. Larger systems require regulator approval. Since Solar is modular and can be build in any size the utilities are building a lot of 75 MW systems. Gas generators are larger and require regulator approval. The citrus farming industry has gone way down in the past 15 years which frees up a lot of land.
In July 2024 Florida produced about 8% of electricity from solar, coal 4%, nuclear 10%, gas 78% source. Florida uses more power in July since it is air conditioning season.
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michael sweet at 01:34 AM on 30 October 2024Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
Nigelj,
This wind map shows more detail than the statewide averages you linked. There is a lot of wind in West Texas. California has windy areas in the southeast part of the state. Florida has little wind and the state recently passed a law forbiding offshore wind.
There are other sources of renewable jobs. A lot of solar panel manufacturing plants and wind turbine suppliers have been or are in the process of being built, primarily in republician areas, using money ftom Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. Other political issues cause uneven distribution of renewable energy. The OP points out that Montana, West Virginia, Wyoming and Alaska do not have much renewable energy, undoubtedly for political reasons. California has encouraged renewable energy so they have a lot of it.
Texas is an interesting case. They have their own grid to avoid federal regulations. In the past they have always gone with the cheapest producer to lower costs. Now that wind, solar and batteries are cheaper than gas they are changing their rules to protect the gas industry. It will be interesting to see how long Texas pays more for gas power instead of installing cheaper renewable energy. Since gas power plants take longer to build than renewable plants and they need power soon they will have to make some hard choices.
Renewables are now cheaper virtually everywhere so political reasons are the main reason they are not built out faster. It costs less to build a new renewable plant (including the mortgage) than to run a coal plant with no mortgage. If utility executives want to charge less for power they build renewables. Almost all new build power in the USA (and the world) is renewable because it is cheapest.
I remember in Australia several years ago the government supported building more coal plants. More recently solar was supported. Now Australia has a lot of renewable solar from those installations and coal is struggling to compete.
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nigelj at 06:19 AM on 29 October 2024Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
Great to see this jobs growth driven by renewables. Good for the economy.
I was curious how the states with high renewables penetration correlated with favourable wind speeds and solar irradiance levels. Texas, California and Florida have high renewables penetration. Curiously all three have quite low average wind speeds for the states as a whole, so I assume the wind farms must be coastal and / or offshore where winds would be highest. All three states have high average solar irradiance.
The western states towards the middle and south generally tend to have high average wind speeds and high average solar irradiance but generally low renewables penetration. I wonder if that is due to political factors, or good coal resources, or its because there are some local conditions that just dont suit renewables. Relevant maps:
worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/windiest-states
www.nrel.gov/gis/assets/images/solar-annual-ghi-2018-usa-scale-01.jpg
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BaerbelW at 07:04 AM on 28 October 2024Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes Video - 2020 edition
Andy Lee Robinson published the 2024 version of his animation on October 25, 2024:
https://youtu.be/NphVG576grU?si=F_xF0mfjjrd_5o6l
Andy explains in the video description how much effort is involved to render the video:
"I produced the animation using hand-written Perl and PHP code to create PovRay scripts, and scheduling task distribution using MySQL between 8 Linux servers working in parallel to render 1018 frames at 3840 x 2180 resolution. Each frame took an average of about 45 minutes to render, so that is 763 hours or 4.5 weeks of CPU time, shared between the servers to complete in 5 days.
I also built a web interface to keep track of the rendering jobs, start, stop and redo frames for all the distributed servers. They would upload their results to a webserver after each frame, to make a total size of 7.6GB to then be combined with the piano track using ffmpeg into a high quality mp4 video for upload."
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Eclectic at 10:17 AM on 26 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
OPOF @678 :
Agreed. Far too late to attempt a better label than "GH Effect".
JBomb was merely "trailing his coat" to amuse himself.
Moderator Response:[PS] Eclectic - not a helpful comment.
This thread is well offtopic. JBomb, you appear to be disputing empirical evidence for the inappropriately named GH effect. I suggest that any further comments be placed instead in this thread empirical evidence for global warming. While the properties of GH gases can be studied in the laboratory, the GH effect depends on a non-isothermic column. The theory makes numerous other predictions which can be experimentally observed. -
One Planet Only Forever at 09:28 AM on 26 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
Eclectic @677,
In 1901 Nils Gustaf Ekholm used the term ‘greenhouse’ regarding the warming impact of gases like CO2 in the atmosphere. And it is now used globally to the point of ghg being a commonly understood acronym.
I doubt that you really agree with JBomb’s way of thinking about the greenhouse effect. The 'greenhouse' concept works for most people ... but not for those who choose to be ‘deliberately hard of learning’. The ‘learning resistant’ way of thinking leads them to claim nonsense like “If one fills a greenhouse with higher concentrations of CO2, it doesn't get any hotter.” as if that is a relevant point to try to make.
I offered an alternative ‘greenhouse understanding’ and a related experiment that is more aligned with the correct understanding of why the term ‘Greenhouse gas effect’ is so common and is unlikely to be replaced by some new term.
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Eclectic at 08:27 AM on 26 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
Quite correct, Michael Sweet @675. The scientific inquiry into the climate/CO2 nexus goes far back, well beyond a bit more than half a century.
My comment was intended to mean, that since about the 1950's , the investigations of CO2 properties (at the large scale of climate effect) have come so very thick and fast that it's close to impossible for a reasonable man to avoid all the evidence.
~ In other words, today a reasonable man making reasonable inquiry into climate/CO2 issues has to be disingenuous to state that he has yet to find "evidence".
(b) OnePlanetOF @676 , the "GreenHouse Effect" is really a very miserable analogy at the planetary scale. And I agree with JBomb about that . . . however, JBomb's purpose was to "trail his coat".
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:13 AM on 26 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
JBomb @672,
Another way of thinking about the CO2 Greenhouse effect is to consider the CO2 and other greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to be like the glass of a greenhouse. The glass lets light energy in but reduces the rate of heat loss from inside.
Using double-glazed glass rather than single plate glass is almost certain to make the inside warmer. Build your own to test if you wish.
Increasing the amount of atmospheric ghg will increase the planet's surface temperature in a similar way.
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michael sweet at 04:31 AM on 26 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
Eclectic at 673,
We agree on most issues regarding Climate Science. At 673 you said "There's more than half a century of scientific investigation showing that CO2 causes warming."
In the 1850's scientists first measured the emission lines of carbon dioxde and noted that if carbon dioxide increased in the atmosphere it would heat the Earth (170 years ago). In about 1898 Arhennius calculated the temperature increase from a doubling of carbon dioxide and got a result not too far off the current estimates (125 years ago). In 1965 the National Academy of Science told President Johnson that climate change would be a big problem in the future (60 years ago).
The science of climate change has been understood by scientists for much longer than half a century. I find that many novices think that climate science was only recently developed when in fact it is well established, long understood that carbon dioxide will heat the Earth.
I think we should say "There's more than 170 years of scientific investigation showing that CO2 causes warming". Jbomb need only look at the absorbtion lines of carbon dioxide to see convincing experimental evidence that the Earth will warm with more carbon dioxide in the air.
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MA Rodger at 17:37 PM on 25 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
JBomb @672,
I would say that the planetary greenhouse effect is not well described. And as you say, an actual greenhouse will radiate the same (and thus cool the same) regardless of its CO2 levels. The level of radiation will depend on temperature.
One difference between an actual greenhouse and our planet's atmosphere is that greenhouses are far-more leaky than our atmosphere which is very stable with little upward and downward air movement. Thus, outside a hurricane a packet of air will take a week or so to travel the 10 miles up to the top of the troposphere at the tropics, and the same to come back down again, roughly. This is because, as the air rises it cools and expands, this all in balance with the atmosphere as a whole. And if this were not the case, hurricane-strength winds would be the result at ground level.
That said, consider the concentration of CO2 per volume in the atmosphere. At higher altitudes, the pressure is less and the molecules including the CO2 are more spaced out. So at some point, the radiation absorbed and emitted by CO2 will begin to emit upward and out into space, cooling the planet.
The greenhouse effect works because an increase in the CO2 concentration will make that radiation escaping into space happen higher up in the atmosphere. And that will be a cooler part of the atmosphere. Cooler gas radiates less. So with increased CO2 the cooling of the planet will be less. And to reach equilibrium, the planet has to warm.
That is how the greenhouse effect works. The various aspects of its working can be shown by experiment. But other than a full-scale experiment, pumping CO2 into a planet's Earth-like atmosphere, the full mechanism in action would be difficult to demonstrate by experiment.
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Eclectic at 07:56 AM on 25 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
JBomb @672 :
There's more than half a century of scientific investigation showing that CO2 causes warming. And yet you yourself have been unable to find anything of that?
Permit me to be skeptical about your "agnosticism".
Perhaps you have wandered onto an inappropriate website ~ you would be happier trying WattsUpWithThat website (where over half the participants are "agnostic" about the mass of evidence that the globe is warming at all).
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JBomb at 06:22 AM on 25 October 2024CO2 lags temperature
As someone agnostic to climate change, I'd like to point out that the beer can analogy doesn't propose that CO2 causes warming and, indeed, supports the notion that CO2 levels follow temperature changes caused by other means.
I am trying to find reproducible studies that prove CO2 contributes to increased warming at all, but I can only find anecdotal evidence, which is not evidence at all. It merely demonstrates CO2 follows warming, which we all agree on.
If one fills a greenhouse with higher concentrations of CO2, it doesn't get any hotter. This has been tried many times.
Is someone able to provide any experiments to prove CO2 contribution to warming?
Many thanks.
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nigelj at 11:08 AM on 24 October 2024Climate Risk
Jess Scarlett, I appreciate your concerns, but the amount of CO2 released by drilling holes is totally insignificant. Even volcanic eruptions have not released enough CO2 to explain the recent warming trend. Scientists have spent thousands of hours researching these issues and every possible cause of warming and every possible source source of CO2 before ruling them out. You can find this material with a simple google search and by scanning through the information in the "climate myths" box on the left hand side of this page.
If you are suspicious of the temperature record in Australia then I suggest please look at the global surface temperature record over land. Look at the global temperature in the oceans. Look at the ballon temperature record. look at the upper atmosphere temperature record. They all show roughly the same warming trend. Urban and rural areas show the same warming trend. One set of data might be in error, but it seems very unlikely to me several would be.
Also sometimes the raw data has problems, so needs adjustments. For example data from early last century from ships were found to be in error, and the raw data was adjusted DOWN so actually reduced the warming record. This is hardly a sign of people wanting to exagerate the warming trend. If you are still sceptical about temperature data, look at the UAH satellite temperature record compiled by Roy Spencer a scientist and a climate change sceptic, but even his temperature record shows robust warming.
If you still dont believe the global temperature records, and that the world is warming, you are beyond being reasoned with.
Your comments do suggest you may have been persuaded by conspiracy theories. The idea that there is an international movement by tens of thousands of meterologists and scientists to deliberately exaggerate warming is just insanity. There is no rational motivation for such a thing. No government wants expensive problems to deal with and is certainly not going to invent them when it gets plenty dumped on its plate anyway. It would be impossible to have a giant conspiracy like this and keep it quiet. Some of these guys would leak the truth. Its like the idea that NASA faked the moon landings. This doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.
Yes the renewables have their downsides and require a lot of mining. And yes the corporate sector benefit from building renewables and sometimes the business world is a dirty affair. But what is your better solution to the climate problem? Because its a huge environmental problem that is affecting not just human society, but the natural world, and you say you are a greenie, right?
Lots of your statements are false at PC points out. And evidence free. I suggest don't let any concerns you might have that we are potentially neglecting our various other environmental problems bias you against the climate issue. I don't see evidence we are neglecting other problems. Personally I think we have to deal with both the climate problem and other environmental problems together , and humanity is obviously able to deal with several problems at the same time.
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Philippe Chantreau at 09:14 AM on 24 October 2024Climate Risk
Off topic word salad interspersed by demonstrably false assertions...
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Jess Scarlett at 06:55 AM on 24 October 2024Climate Risk
Being a Greenie all my life in Australia Ive bern watching this machine funded climate change take over the whole Green movement. Ive watched thousands of forests removed for external companies for woid chip and complete devastation of climate by removal of carbon balanced cooling environments. As I now start to see a massive alkiance with tge metal industry and using net zero bs agenda to deep sea mine the largest carbon storage in our deep seas for matals for the so called S.M.A.R.T technoligical movement that is part of the W.E.F agenda its very alatming to see how this doesnt look as corrupt as the whole petrolium industry. Under most forests in rich dence metals in the soils.. I just cant help but research back to around 2008 to 2009 when the IPCC shifted focus to humans effect on global warming so only collecting data on this rather than the vast reasons on global carbon increse. Drilling in the earth can release carbon and thats exactly what this new political global agenda is about. The IPCC was done for hiking temperatures and changing glacier melting times by over 100x the year amount. With all the removal of trees around the planet for toxic solar panels is a direct attack on sustainability. Recently hearing Bill Gates saying investing in trees is not science. Yet we have 50 countries playing with geo engineering as we debate means any data from here on is not natural or at least influenced. Finding these documents have become much longer a search based on the massive influx of paid science and topics of conversation. If anyone looks up Shares in Geo Engineering it will prove how much private companies are playing god at the moment. My father was a top scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne. In 2013-2015 most accurate data analyists and records were defunded and CSIRO and NASA gagged them all. Its a very big hot debate and appreciate researching way back if you commonly use government controlled internet search engines. I am driving up as passenger in a car.. So I apologise in advance for my 1st draft off top of head response. Im also dyslexic but I love this site and especially love the comments. I actually cannot go back to fix via phone.
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nigelj at 05:42 AM on 24 October 2024Why widening highways doesn’t reduce traffic congestion
I live in New Zealand, and we have experienced the issue of induced travel, and in quite dramatic form. About 30 years New Zealand started experiencing increasingly severe traffic congestion due in part to accelerated rates of immigration, and in part to a policy that allowed the importation of cheap used Japanese vehicles. You can imagine the ressult of this!
About 15 years ago it reached crisis point and the Government engaged in a large road building programme, and on occasion widened existing roads primariy to reduce this traffic congestion and travel times. It worked for a few years, and then those traffic times start to creep back up, so induced travel is a very real thing.
The filling up of the new roads is not all due to immigration pressure or cheap cars because those trends have stabilised. Its induced travel. The roads mostly had a rather poor cost benefit ratio and this assumed congestion would stay low. So its like we are constantly running to try to catch up, and we are throwing a lot of money and resources at the problem for meagre returns.
In my view the problem goes back to urban design. Cheap fossil fuels have enabled massive technological advances and this created a model of centralised cities with their factories, and this separates people from the food supply and their workplaces, and makes it essential to have effective long distance transport links. And instead of compact walkable cities countries like America and New Zealand opted for spread out suburban living because the wealth creation allowed everyone to own a car and a suburban home. But this whole structure is utterly dependent on the car and a complex roading system.
New Zealand has experimented with pushing things back to the walkable city concept, (which I personally quite like) with encouraging highrise apartments and high density living, making improvements for pedestrian travel, and creating bicycle lanes on the roads, and car free zones, and reduced car parking in shopping areas and improvements to things like buses and train transport.
The problem is there has been enormous push back from all sorts of groups of people. People resent losing their sunlight and views when high density homes are built next door. Car owners are frustrated that dedicated bicycle lanes create less space on the roads for cars, and less car parks available. Retailers are angry that reduced car parks outside their shops is allegedly loosing them business. As a result the current conservative leaning government are downscaling cycle lanes and building more roads.
Some of these complaints seem valid - such as having a 4 story height apartment block cutting out your sunlight and privacy, but some complaints are less valid. Complaints that buiding bicycle lanes and reducing car parking badly affects buiness are less valid. Studies show it doesnt cause business to suffer, probably because its countered by easier access for people walking or cycling. Refer:
thespinoff.co.nz/science/17-05-2024/cycle-lanes-are-good-for-business-actually
However making public transport work better has proven very difficult.You need a lot of buses to get people exactly where they need to go in one trip and this becomes costly. People arent so keen on getting two or three buses to get to their destination, which is understandable and especially when buses are notoriously unreliable. But obviously there are at least some things you can do to improve and expand public transport.
Of course change on the scale we are looking at is rarely smooth or quick or easy, but we do face an enormous challenge, because trillions of dollars of infrastructure are designed around the car (essentially) so changing this wont happen overnight. However other living options to the walkable city are not so viable. We cant all live idyllic lives in little settlements in the country because we need at least some big cities that are closely integrated with industrial production, assuming we want a technology based future.
So the walkable big city concept seems like its the best option overall. I doubt even that can totally replace the car, for obvious reasons, but it could make us a lot less car dependent and that helps. Famous quote: "The perfect is the enemy of the good" (Voltaire)
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Bob Loblaw at 23:58 PM on 23 October 2024Climate Risk
FYI, there is a fairly active discussion of this post on its original location at AndThenTheresPhysics. The link is in the green box at the top of this post, but here it is again for convenience.
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2024/10/16/climate-risk/
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walschuler at 04:56 AM on 23 October 2024Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
Every bit of new cooling adds to the problem, regardless of scale, because the removed heat can only be ejected to the receiving reservoir if it is at higher temperature than the reservoir, and in doing so raises the temperature of the reservoir, making it necessary to raise the ejected heat's temperature even further. This is a nasty positive feedback loop that noticably raises the cooling load and outdoor temperature in cities, where the ejected heat load per squre foot is high and air circulation to air outside city limits may be poor.
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michael sweet at 01:35 AM on 23 October 2024Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
Neck fans are are very well and enclosed sports stadiums might keep fans cool but who will cool off all the cattle and other farm animals raised outside? It is impossible to provide air conditioning for all animals. Not to mention that basic crops like corn, grass and wheat are heat sensitive. Look at what it is like around Phoenix. If it gets that hot throughout Texas and further north agricultural production will plummet.
Shaded cooling chairs to watch soccer are fine but what about the kids running around with no shade? They will all overheat. Think these "solutions" through. Everyone cannot move to Canada.
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pattimer at 20:51 PM on 22 October 2024Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
More GW meaning more personal cooling and home cooling a bit of a positive feedback there. I suppose one might argue less space heating in the winter required though .
Regardless a more divided world means more procrastination is tolerated.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:35 AM on 22 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
MA Roger @59,
Thanks for the additional thoughts and information.
I agree that there could be a lot of aspects to the explanation of 'all of it'. I probably should have said something like 'All that is missing is a robust set of explanations that collectively address all of it without being contradictory'.
I will continue to follow the development of the understanding aware that changes of current understanding may be required. But, contrary to the desired beliefs of the likes of Nikolov & Zeller, those changes of understanding are very unlikely to reduce the need for humans to rapidly end their collective harmful impacts on many of this amazing planet's environmental systems, not just the climate system.
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MA Rodger at 20:13 PM on 20 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
One Planet Only Forever @58,
I'm of the view that "a robust explanation that is consistent with all of it" is probably asking too much given the "all of it" contains a lot of very intriguing stuff. It thus continues to attract at least my attention. Why, for instance, does the CERES data show the planet reflects short wave in wobbles that are coincidental with wobbles in global temperature (as are the measured of cloud amount wobbles) but the wobbles in long wave IR emissions are apparently five months late? And the big issue - why is the longer-term rate of change of global temperature not responding to the longer-term rise in EEI? That is, why does the CERES EEI data show EEI trebling when the long-term rate of global warming increased just 50%.I did think to plot out a graph showing the CERES EEI data measured in Hiroshima/Second and the graphic I adapted has a plot of the accelerations-decelerations of GisTemp L-OTI 1950-to date. This is posted here 20th October 2024.
I also note the link to the recent rambling but amusing Nikolov & Zeller paper @57 is misdirecting. The paper is HERE.
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FiMason at 19:09 PM on 18 October 2024Remembering our friend John Mason
Hello - I'm Fi, John's sister.
We say farewell to John at 14:00 BST on Tuesday 22nd October 2024 at Aberystwyth Crematorium. All are welcome.The service will also be live streamed at website https://watch.obitus.com
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:53 AM on 18 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
MA Roger @57,
Thanks for the additional information and thoughts.
There is lots of evidence. All that is missing is a robust explanation that is consistent with all of it.
However, in spite of that detailed explanation not yet being developed, there is little doubt that things will continue to be made worse by continued harmful unsustainable human activities and their impacts (sort of like the harm of smoking not being in doubt even though the exact mechanism of the harm done was not certain).
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Eclectic at 04:24 AM on 17 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Moderator Bob , thank you for the notification of sock-puppetry.
Passing strange, is it not, that whenever a certain anonymous author (under numerous pseudonyms) keeps arguing that 20+20=37 . . . he keeps assuming that the editor won't recognise the foolish mathematical error being repeated year after year.
One is reminded of Einstein's definition of insanity.
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MA Rodger at 21:02 PM on 16 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
One Planet Only Forever @55,
The CO2 level in the atmosphere has been accelerating through the decades and indeed the resulting climate forcing has also been accelerating. The total GHG forcing is less 'acceleraty' due to the cuts in CFC emissions back in the 1990s. The table below shows the average annual increase in CO2 forcing and total GHG forcing (WM^-2) from the NOAA AGGI.1980s ... ... 0.026 ... ... 0.047
1990s ... ... 0.023 ... ... 0.033
2000s ... ... 0.028 ... ... 0.033
2010s ... ... 0.034 ... ... 0.040
2020s ... ... 0.032 ... ... 0.040The big omission is the negative forcings from aerosols and a lot of ink has been spilt addressing that particular omission. (For instance, the marine regs of 2020 have often been mentioned as a possible cause of the "bananas" temperatures seen from the back half of 2023.) While it is a big omission, I'm not of the view that it will not prove an essential ingredient in understanding the EEI and 'bomb increase' measured both by CERES and in OHC.
There are plenty of rabbit-holes to jump down when tring to explain the CERES data. (I note recently a couple of the 'usual suspects' Nikolov & Zeller
trying to argue that it is the 'bomb increase' that has been forcing the whole of AGW.)The 'bomb increase' is a net result from (1) a warming world which is thus leaking more IR into space and thus lowering EEI and (2), a less reflective world due to a reducing albedo increasing EEI. These both present reasonably good correlations with global temperature (1) -1.53Wm^-2/ºC and (2) +2.81Wm^-2/ºC with thus a net increase in EEI running +1.2Wm^-2/ºC.
What makes me sceptical about any very significant role of aerosol-reduction in the albedo numbers is both that there is the significant correlation with temperature wobbles (which suggests the reduced albedo results from climate feedbacks) and that the peiod where that albedo-temperature correlation looks less than convincing (2007-14 which are those dreaded hiatus years) doesn't coincide with any explained event (like the marine emissions regs) where we would expect something to be seen. [I posted a pink graphic of these correlations 5th December 2023, which you can scroll down-to here]
There remains the thorny question of whhat lies behind these correlations.
Back-of-envelope calculations appear to suggest something must be at work beyond simple AGW. The AGGI numbers above suggest the 2000-20 additional forcing totals +0.73WM^-2 which is roughly equal to the EEI increase through the period. But with SAT also rising +0.6ºC through the period, increases in AGGI and in EEI should not at all be equal.
If they are actual correlations with global temperature, what was happening pre-2000?
Do they otherwise include some wobble or some aerosol-effect?
Another rabbit hole is that while the rate of change in temperature (acceleration) over short periods fits with the wobbles in EEI, the increasing EEI does not fit at all well with the longer term temperature accelerations.
So there is a lot of rabbit holes and to-date no sensible-sounding explanation.
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Eclectic at 20:56 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
NavierStokes @719. :
The basic principles of absorption/emission and kinetic transfer of energy are (in the OP) set out and illustrated in a simple manner which allows the reader to understand the obvious implications.
So to that extent, your question is moot (= void).
If you wish to re-write the Basic Rebuttal in a superior form, please post it here as a demonstration. Readers would doubtless be interested to review your efforts ~ and the Editors may well accept a superior replacement, or at least make some modifications to the OP.
Per Ardua Ad Astra.
Moderator Response:[BL] Unfortunately, NavierStokes is yet another sock puppet of a user that has polluted these threads over the years. As sock puppetry is a violation of the Comments Policy, NavierStokes will no longer be participating here - until he makes yet another attempt to break the rules and create another sock puppet (forcing us to ban him again...)
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NavierStokes at 18:40 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
Eclectic@718:
Whoever wrote the Basic Rebuttal doesn't understand the greenhouse effect at all. They seem to believe that the GHG molecules absorb IR radiation directly from the incoming sunlight instead of the upwelling terrestrial IR from the surface as indicated in the following quote:
Sunshine consists mostly of ultraviolet, visible light and infra-red photons. Objects warmed by the sun then re-emit energy photons at infra-red wavelengths. Like other greenhouse gases, CO2 has the ability to absorb infra-red photons.
Remember that 99%+ of the incoming EMR from the sun is in the visible spectrum and is absorbed by the earth (except of course for what is reflected as albedo). The earth then re-emits this absorbed energy as a 288-294 deg. K blackbody at the surface. We then get the greenhouse effect when the GHG molecules absorb this upward-bound IR and convert it into thermal energy in some manner. Therefore, this Basic Rebuttal badly needs to be rewritten and my question still stands.
[Snip]
Moderator Response:[BL] The people writing the rebuttals here understand the greenhouse effect far better than you and your many sock puppets do. It is unfortunate that your stubbornness prevents you from ever learning any of the many things you clearly do not understand.
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Eclectic at 17:50 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
NavierStokes @717 :
Your question is answered in the Basic version of the Rebuttal.
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NavierStokes at 15:42 PM on 16 October 2024CO2 effect is saturated
I have a question concerning the Advanced Rebuttal for this "Is the CO2 effect saturated?" argument. I agree that thermal energy is spread around and transferred upward by radiation and convection and that IR emissions are occurring at all levels in the atmosphere. What is not mentioned, however, is where and how the CO2 molecules absorb IR energy from the 15 micron band for release as thermal energy in the greenhouse effect.
[snip] Could someone clarify this?
Moderator Response:[BL] These and many other questions you have had over the years, in many sock puppets, have been clarified over, and over, and over again. Nothing will every make it into your closed mind, so why bother?
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cctpp85 at 04:06 AM on 12 October 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41 2024
Honest candidates need supports, even if it looks like spamming.
Multi-model is a well-known technique to sample uncertainties. Mixing altitudes is a proficient means to damp out the impact of all surface station biases which are larger in the past. As you can see, since 1980 changing from surface to 850 mb is not the reason of uncertainties whereas changing from ERA5 to NCEP/NCAR is one of the reasons of uncertainties. The real interest of 850 mb is that you can use 20CRv3 since 1900 and NCEP/NCAR since 1980.
[snip]
Before you delete my comment, [snip] my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552583485316
Moderator Response:[BL Off-topic, non-responsive stuff snipped.
Alas, I had hoped that by commenting as a non-moderator I would encourage you to rethink your ways. Clearly not.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:03 AM on 12 October 2024Climate change made Hurricane Helene and other 2024 disasters more damaging, scientists find
A tragic reality is the ways that the economic activity to attempt to repair the damage done will get counted as part of GDP and its growth.
The repair and recovery actions may include improvements on the conditions prior to the tragedy. But a substantial part of the activity is just trying to get back to the conditions prior to the damage done. And in some cases the repair and recovery actions will not return things to the way they were before the damage was done.
A big picture view of Global Warming exposes the global example of this problem. Efforts trying to undo the global warming-climate change harm done to date, everywhere, not just in a 'region of concern', may count as 'positive' GDP. But it will fail to fully repair and fully make amends for the damage done.
For GDP to indicate improvement it needs to exclude 'repair and recovery actions'.
There is an understandable 'permanent debt due to climate change impacts' that will be experienced by humanity far into the future.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:40 AM on 12 October 2024You will not escape the climate crisis
prove we are smart,
I am quite confident that the most successful path to developing lasting improvements for the future of humanity would be 'everyone pursuing increased awareness and improved understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful to others'.
History, recent and the distant past, is full of evidence of sub-sets of the totality of humanity (the total being all people living today and into the future) benefiting by getting away with acting in ways that are detrimental to Others, especially being detrimental to 'future Others'.
And even when the harm done happens to people they know the 'sub-set benefiting from causing harm will tend to try to find ways to excuse the harm done by their unsustainable unjustifiable pursuits of personal benefit. Their excuses will include:
- denial that the harm is real (claims about fake crisis actors)
- claiming that others are causing the harm
- claiming that Others are more harmful than they are
- blaming those who are harmed
- claiming that those who are harmed also benefit
- claiming that the harmful actions are required to support actions that reduce the harm done
So, I am also quite confident that an 'improving lasting future for humanity' requires the powerful regions on the planet ensure that their leadership is always governing based on learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others (especially the future others).
So, effectively making those who try to pursue popularity through misinformation and disinformation 'the losers' is essential to the future of humanity.
So, there will always be a tribal conflict between the harmful misleaders and those who promote learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.
The requirement is for the misleaders to not be significantly influential - everywhere on every issue. That appears to be very difficult to achieve.I hope humanity has a lasting improving future. But there is significant reason to doubt that it will.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:17 AM on 12 October 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41 2024
cctpp85 @ 1:
Is that comment directed towards a specific part of the OP, which covers new research? If not, it is off-topic here, and you should use the search function to find a thread where it is on-topic.
In addition, you are extremely short on details as to your methodology. Your graph (based on the legend) appears to mix surface temperatures with 850mb temperatures. Why? What are your data sources? How is your analysis done? Your opinion about your version bears little weight if nobody else knows how you arrive at your results.
You have previously been warned (on this thread) about our inability to read your mind, and your unwillingness to engage with people asking questions. Please do not repeat that pattern.
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cctpp85 at 18:57 PM on 11 October 2024Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41 2024
My version has +/- 0.06 uncertainty for each year in average since 1980, which I think is more secure than the +/- 0.02 uncertainty as communicated by individual institutes.
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prove we are smart at 08:55 AM on 11 October 2024Climate change made Hurricane Helene and other 2024 disasters more damaging, scientists find
It's an increasing self destructive path we are on as now there are so many more of us-yes,other reasons too! An urgent reset is needed to change peoples thoughts/habits as to what is important.
As for myself,I became a tree crop farmer for the last 2/3 of my working life and raising my little family in a small village.In hindsight this kept me grounded although my joy for fifty years was up in the air,gliding on natures air currents!
These quotes are from some men and women who soared far higher than me and really lived the big picture.This phenomena is named the Overview Effect.
"we're seeing very clearly that if the earth becomes sick,then we become sick,if the earth dies then we are going die.People sense that something is wrong but they are stuck struggling to go back and find what the real root of the problems are and I think what we need to come to is the realization that it's not just fixing an economic or political problem but it's a basic world view,a basic understanding of who we are that's at stake. Part of that is to come up with a new story,a new perspective,a new way to approach this. To shift our behaviours in a way that it leads to a more sustainable approach to our civilization as opposed to a destuctive one".
Send the decision makers up in space-who would of thought?
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:57 AM on 11 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
I forgot a link in my message @55,
Based on NOAA (see here) ...
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:55 AM on 11 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
MA Roger @54,
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I now appreciate that the ‘reason’ or attribution for the EEI rate appearing to have increased from 4 bombs to 9 bombs (or higher) is still not fully understood.
The annual CO2 level increase now appears to be about 40% higher than the average from 1980 to 2010 (see below). That does not appear to reasonably explain the more than doubling of the EEI in a way that is reasonably consistent with the expectation that no significant warming will occur after human impacts on GHG levels are effectively ‘net-zero’.
Could it be that the magnitude of annual GHG increase is significantly exceeding the rate of annual EEI to achieve the new balanced state? That would mean that there is a growing amount of ‘yet to be realized’ global warming. However, if the wind-down of GHG impacts is able to be slow enough, the reduction happens sooner and a more significant reduction happens earlier, then that excess warming could be realized by the time that human impacts become effectively net-zero. That would be seen by the EEI not declining at the time that the rate of CO2 increase begins to significantly decline.
Based on NOAA (see here) the approximate 10 year average annual increases of CO2 levels were as follows:
0.8 ppm - in the 60s (1960 to 1970)
1.3 ppm - 70s
1.6 ppm - 80s
1.5 ppm - 90s
1.9 ppm – 2000s
2.4 ppm - 2010sAverage annual increase from 1980 to 2010 = 1.7 ppm
Average of 2010 to 2020 = 2.4 (with 2018 at 2.4 and 2019 at 2.5), an increase of about 40% compared to the period used to calculate the 4 bomb per second rate.
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prove we are smart at 10:23 AM on 10 October 2024You will not escape the climate crisis
Yes, mitigation policies are 100% better than forced adaptation measures and surely educated people can elect educated leaders-( I wish).
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MA Rodger at 21:14 PM on 9 October 20244 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second
One Planet Only Forever @52,
The difference (4 bombs & 9 bombs) is indeed due to a different EEI numbers which are increasing with time. The OP uses 8Zj/y. The 1.12Wm^-2 quoted by philalethes @48 is 18Zj/y. But even that could be now out-of-date.
The actual EEI wobbles a lot and through 2019 12-month average CERES number is 1.30Wm^-2.
The quoted 'EEI (from 2019) = 1.12 W/m²' value presumably comes from Loeb et al (2021) 'Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth’s Heating Rate' which puts it as "1.12 ± 0.48 W m−2 in mid-2019," this based on a linear (OLS) fit through CERES data, a linear rise 2000-19 backed by the OHC data for the same period. The CERES linear fit gave a +0.05Wm^−2/year increase in EEI, the OHC +0.04Wm^−2/year, both with big error bars (making the results barely statistically significant at 2sd).
While we now have had a few more years of looking at EEI, the 2000-to-date OLS thro' the CERES data is still yielding the same basic result suggesting today a value of 1.37Wm^-2/y. But the point of such an analysis (which as a strict linear value would point to AGW starting only in 1995) is to work towards an attribution of the increasing EEI.
(The EEI numbers presented by the ClimateChangeTracker EEI page stretches back to 1985 when estimates of EEI were cooling due to volcanic eruptions (El Chichón 1982 & Pinatuba 1991). Within the wobbles, the latest 12-month average (to June 2024) is +0.95Wm^-2.)
Reconciling CERES numbers with longer in-situ OHC data isn't entirely achieved with such OHC data significantly lower, although OHC calculated from sea level (geodetic) data gives a good match to CERES. The graphic below is from Cheng et al (2024). Note numbers in the insert in graph suggests 2020-23 OHC rising at 17.7Zj/y.
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nigelj at 14:56 PM on 9 October 2024You will not escape the climate crisis
I suspect the world will only take climate change seriously when a heatwave kills something way out of the boundaries of normality maybe 300,000. It's like covid when it was a small thing in China nobody was too worried but when large numbers started dying in Italy the world woke up. But I could be wrong so it's still Important to promote mitigation policies.
