Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 Next
Comments 3401 to 3450:
-
Eclectic at 09:54 AM on 19 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct @15 ,
the article you linked at Dr Curry's "Climate Etc" blog was posted 14 days ago. Since then, the author has made a number of replies to the 150+ response comments. And my impression is that the author is an intelligent guy, experienced in electrical grid matters ~ and pleasantly civil, too.
David, I hope you read through the article very carefully ~ for it is an interesting example of Motivated Reasoning. Also interesting for what it omits, as well as for what it states.
The author emphasizes the complexity and difficulty in managing a large AC grid. And yet he (as Michael Sweet points out) skates over the modern role of lithium Big Batteries in providing economical & excellent load/frequency stabilization of an AC grid.
True, the present-day batteries have minimal storage ability (where high storage capacity would require a big jump into today's nascent technology of vanadium flow batteries or other types).
Nevertheless, as you see there - and especially toward the end of his article - the author has not only a "rear-view" mindset, but he is motivating himself to regard the introduction of renewable/green electricity as being a 100% or zero% proposition. That's not a logical position to take, regarding AGW. Clearly, he has an emotional bias in favor of only small "penetration" by renewables.
Overall, I would class the article as poor quality.
-
michael sweet at 08:32 AM on 19 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct,
Linking to an anonymous blog post on Judith Curries' blog does not support your argument here. here, here and here are three summaries of peer reviewed papers that document that renewable energy will work. I note that you have linked the same blog post twice. The last link that I posted is the most recent. In that paper, the last group that supported using nuclear power in the future concluded that renewable energy was cheaper and the way to go. Nuclear is too expensive. The first two references are now old. Their conclusions have stood the test of time although the costs of renewable energy have declined much more rapidly than expected. That means it will be much cheaper than they estimate in these old papers. Jacobson now uses a lot of batteries for storage since the cost of batteries has declined so much. I note that Jacobson's papers on renewable energy have been cited thousands of times by other peer reviewed sources. Not really comparable to an anonympous blog post on a denier blog that no-one reads for content.
The first reason the anonymous poster at Curries' blog gives for not liking renewable energy is that "Wind and solar do not readily supply essential reliability services." The large battery installed in Australia several years ago has proven to deliver higher quality reliability services to the grid than conventional generation at a cheaper cost. All the storage batteries currently being built can provide these higher quality services at very low cost. The anonyumous complaint has no merit.
Once you see that "Planning Engineer"'s first issue has no merit it is a waste of time to discuss the rest of his anonymous post. What are his qualifications anyway? Almost all of his citations are to his own blog posts on Curries' blog. He also cited a 10 year old Forbes article!
Renewable energy is the way of the future. All the issues listed by "Planning Engineer" have been considered in the links I have cited and cost effective ways of resolving them have been found.
You have still not described the basic logical flaw you think Jacobson made.
-
David-acct at 22:45 PM on 18 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
michael # 6
Your response is easily rebutted by simply understanding the raw data. I have previously linked to EIA which should dispel many of the misconceptions.
I have attached the link which shows the volitility of electric generation in the MISO grid. The claim that increased wind and solar penetration wont increase grid instability is made by renewable advocates who dont have an understanding of the volitility of renewables.
I have also attached a link to a chief engineer who has considerable years of experience and knowledge of actual experience,. Its a great column to help understand and dispel many myths.
Please take the time to read and understand
thanks
Replacing conventional synchronous generating resources, which have been the foundation of the power system, with asynchronous intermittent resources will degrade the reliability of the grid and contribute to blackout risk. The power system is the largest, most complicated wonderful machine ever made. At any given time, it must deal with multiple problems and remain stable. No resources are perfect; in a large system you will regularly find numerous problems occurring across the system. Generally, a power system can handle multiple problems and continue to provide reliable service. However, when a system lacks supportive generation sources, it becomes much more likely it will not be able function reliably when problems occur.
-
David-acct at 22:26 PM on 18 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
michael #
you contradicted yourself "I note that the data you provide shows solar produces the most electricity during the peak consumption hours of 12-5 during the day. This leaves only 5-9 as high consumption hours that need to be supplied by other sources of power like batteries, hydro and wind. Solar covering the crucial times of peak power usage was why renewable energy saved Texas and California from blackouts this past summer."
An understanding of the source data shows your statement is factually incorrect. I have provided a link to EIA for your review for the CISO grid so that you can compare actual electric generation by source.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 02:46 AM on 16 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct @9,
I, like many others, pursue increased awareness and improved understanding about what is harmful and how to be less harmful and more helpful. I do that because that is what is needed for the development of sustainable improvements for the future of humanity. Every critical thinker knows that, but everyone should share that common sense governing objective.
So I welcome good reasons to improve my understanding.
A key point is ‘good reason’. And the interests and beliefs developed in the marketplace of popularity and profit are not ‘by default good reasons’. In fact, there is ample evidence that the developments of that marketplace game can be expected to be as harmful as can be gotten away with. And, secrecy, misleading marketing, and other forms of deception are key tactics in that game.
So, thank you for accepting all the other points I made, especially the repeated one about the harmful misleading game-play in the marketplace of popularity and profit.
With that established I will now update my understanding based on your latest comments. I appreciate that you still have 2 minor points of contention. Michael sweet and nigelj have provided good reasons in response to the concerns about the variability of renewable power generation. So there is no adjustment to be made by me on that point. Therefore, I will focus my response to the minor concern you express regarding the building of parts of an integrated renewable energy system on or adjacent to existing fossil fuel generation facilities.
Any fossil fuel power generation facility that is surrounded by residential development is likely harming those neighbours, especially the older ones (applicable to the plants and the neighbours). There are so many legitimate reports on that topic that I won’t bother pointing to a ‘favourite one’. But thank you for appearing to accept and agree that all the other fossil fuel plants that are not surrounded by neighbourhoods could, and should, have renewable energy systems built adjacent to them as they are phased out of use (and thank you for appearing to accept that your concern about the cost to remove the existing facility was not a valid concern because that full cost should be fully paid for by the owners of the fossil fuel facility).
Even if a fossil fuel plant is surrounded by neighbourhoods worth maintaining, unlike all the neighbourhoods that are now realizing that they have to consider relocation due to climate change threat, the site could have solar power generation maximized by installing solar panels on all of the homes and businesses adjacent to the plant. There could also be batteries in the homes and businesses. And there are many other ways to convert the site from its current harmful unsustainable developed state into a less harmful and more helpful (more sustainable) part of the system (making the system more sustainable).
Regarding back-up power supply for renewable energy generation, already addressed by michael sweet and nigelj, I will add the awareness of gravity battery systems ( that could also be installed on a site. They require very little footprint compared to a fossil fuel power plant. (Substantial amounts of easy to find reporting also exists for this, so I will not point to a ‘selected favourite’. Simply enter the term ‘gravity battery’ in an internet search)
That point raises an important understanding. Claiming that we need to wait for better battery technology to develop is a symptom of failing to critically and seriously investigate this issue. If ‘waiting for a better alternative to develop’ was to govern, then fossil fuel use never should have developed into the massive harmful activity that it has become. And the developing nations should never have been encouraged to start using fossil fuels.
I will close by summarizing that the minor points of contention you have raised are the result of misunderstanding developed in the system of competition for status based on popularity and profit. Don’t feel bad. The system made you do it. Only feel bad, because you would be, if you continued to resist changing your mind.
That system/game created the current massive problem(s) (it has developed many problems, not just harmful rapid global warming and resulting climate change). And it powerfully resists correction of the harmful developments that have incorrectly become so popular and profitable.
Popularity and Profitability do not, by default, mean that something is justified or correct. And failing prey to their temptations leads to the development of poor excuses for understandably incorrect beliefs and resulting harmful actions.
The corrections of the harmful unsustainable activity that had become so popular and profitable was technologically possible to implement decades ago. The only thing stopping the reduction of rate of harm done and limiting of total harm done is the resistance to correction in the system/games of popularity and profit that insidiously and harmfully encourage people to ‘want more without regard for limiting the potential harmful consequences’.
-
michael sweet at 01:23 AM on 16 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David acct,
You continue to refer to current renewable eletrical generation and say that shows that renewable sources can never supply all electricity. That is the same argument people used when they said that ICE cars would never be adopted since there were no gas stations. Eventually gas stations were built and most people drive cars. I remember 10 years ago when fossil supporters claimed it would be impossible to incorporate more than 20% renewable energy into the grid. That turned out to be complete BS. Recently California was 100% renewable energy (many other smaller markets have also been 100% renewable).
I note that the data you provide shows solar produces the most electricity during the peak consumption hours of 12-5 during the day. This leaves only 5-9 as high consumption hours that need to be supplied by other sources of power like batteries, hydro and wind. Solar covering the crucial times of peak power usage was why renewable energy saved Texas and California from blackouts this past summer.
This is the same situation that we currently see with fossil power generation. So called "baseload" plants like coal and nuclear cannot economically be turned off. That means that too much power is generated at night. Most of the pumped hydro currently in the USA was built in the 1970's to store excess nuclear power for use during peak loads during the day. (Nuclear supporters who say batteries for renewable energy will be too expensive never account for the large storage costs using nuclear power.) Many existing commercial air conditioning and heating systems have large cool (heat) storage built in so that they can run their air conditioners (heaters) at night with cheap power and then use the stored cold (heat) during expensive power during the day. The school that I worked at in Florida had a large energy storage system like that. Why do you think people will not be able to use renewable energy in the same way that they currently use excess fossil power?? They can use the currently existing systems to store power if needed. I note the people who criticise renewable energy never discuss energy storage systems currently used to store fossil power.
Several recent studies have found that with a renewable enegy system it will be cheaper to charge cars during the day since solar power is the cheapest energy. Currently it is cheapest to charge at night since nuclear and coal plants cannot be turned off. Why do you have a problem with that? Renewable power can be accurately forecast days in advance. If windy nights with cloudy days are forecast it will be cheaper to charge your car at night. If cool, sunny days are forecast than charge during the day.
People who study energy systems all agree that the variation of generation with renewable energy can be easily accomodated. They do not even model people adjusting the time that they use electricity to save money. (Like the example of people currently running air conditioners at night). Since the electricity cost will be forecast days in advance, people will obviously try to save money. My brother currently always charges his electric car during the cheapest times at night. If it were forecast that electricity would be expensive for two days he would simply not charge until the price of electricity went down. Since he lives in California soon it will be cheaper to charge during the day using solar power.
You have suggested several times that you think Jacobson has a basic logical flaw in his papers. You have never stated what you think the flaw is. If you state what you think the flaw is I can explain to you why you are wrong and Jacobson is correct.
-
nigelj at 15:30 PM on 15 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct @10
"One of the biggest misconceptions results from not understanding the mismatch in timing of electric generation from renewables and the timing of the demand for electricity."
You are joking right? Everyone except a very small number of complete dummies would understand the mismatch of timing. Obviously solar panels dont work in the dark, and wind turbines have reduced output when the winds are light breezes. A child would appreciate that.
However there are known and proven technologies that can deal with these challenges that are easily googled. So whats your point?
-
David-acct at 12:33 PM on 15 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
healthy-skeptic.com/2022/10/07/electricity-generation-in-the-midwest/
In response to Michael Sweet, there are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings on both sides of the renewable debate. One of the biggest misconceptions results from not understanding the mismatch in timing of electric generation from renewables and the timing of the demand for electricity.
To assist in the understanding, I am providing two links which provide significant detail of the supply side of electric generation and the demand side of the electric generation.
The first is the Energy Information Association - pay close attention to the grid
Electric generation by source
The second is a link to the published graphs for the MISO grid for the months October 2021-September 2022. The data is from the EIA website, the same link above.
three items will stand out
1) the very predictable electric generation from solar and the surprisingly very short period of time during daylight that solar produces electricity (basically only 6-10 hours depending on time of year)
2) the very wide volatile fluctuations in electric generation from wind on an hourly basis, daily basis,
3) the third item to notice is the mismatch in timing of the electric generation from wind and solar and the timing of the demand.
these links are great for understanding the basics of renewable electric generation, along with dispelling many of the myths that pervade both sides of the debate.
lets discuss further after you have had a chance to get up to speed on the subject.
Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory snipped.
-
David-acct at 12:24 PM on 15 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
One planet - in response to your question (#3) - there are several reasons that renewable electric generation is not often built on the old fossil fuel generation sites. The first logical reason is that there is not sufficient land available at many of the old sites . Back to understanding the basics, electric generation from solar takes 10x-15x more acreage to generate the same amount electricity as a fossil fuel electric generation plant. Many of the older plants have had industrial and residential development encroaching the area surrounding the plants so that it is no longer practical. In those cases, there is obvious restrictions on increasing the footprint. So it becomes impractical to replace a 200Mwh fossil fuel plant with at 20Mwh solar plant.
The second reason is the need to maintain the operation of those plants as backup until the point in time that sufficient battery back up is developed and/or installed to cover the frequent short comings of renewables. While battery storage is greatly expanded over the last 10 years, it remains a good 10 years in the future before battery back up becomes a significant component of the grid.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 09:25 AM on 14 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct @4,
First - My question 3 is unanswered by your first repsonse. See my expansion of Question 3 in my comment @7.
Second - There is a cost of removing the plant - Period. So that is rather irrelevant.
Third - Answer michael sweet's good questions.
I have more to say in response, but I will await an updated response from you.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 09:19 AM on 14 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
nigelj @2,
Thanks for pointing out the New York Times article.
For the benefit of others like me, who try to avoid on-line financial transactions, a similar presentation is available from the Footprint Coalition - Old coal plants are being resurrected as clean energy hubs
Indeed. Some action is happening to make use of some decommissioned fossil fuel sites. In some cases the use is limited to connection of off-shore renewable generation to the existing transmission infrastructure. But there are cases where the site was repurposed, or is planned to be, for renewable generation facilities on-site.
My question goes beyond the use of the site. It is about maximizing the use of existing transmission infrastructure for a location. That may require land adjacent to the fossil fuel power plant site to also be converted to renewable energy generation. And that adjacent development could have been brought into service in parallel with a phased reduction of operation of the fossil fuel facility.
Upon further reflection, Question 3 would include upgrading the existing transmission system and substations (potentially no major approval hurdles) to maximize renewable power transmission from an existing location.
-
nigelj at 06:32 AM on 14 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
I'm not personally that into the collection of weather records as such, but I totally agree Bob Loblows posts were detailed, and in my view high quality. I was thinking myself that the excange between Bob and Eric was a model of how things should be done, with an emphasis on facts, and free of insults and crank science. So unlike a certain other largely unmoderated climate website. Sigh
-
michael sweet at 21:45 PM on 13 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Bob,
I like your detailed posts describing how weather data are collected, analized and corrected.
-
michael sweet at 21:43 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct:
Your wild claim that more renewable penetration increases creates instability is completely false. Provide citations that support your claims. I note that the freeze in Texas and the ongoing crisis in Europe were both caused by fossil gas problems. Meanwhile, heat wave related crisis in California and Texas were resolved without blackouts because of strong renewable power production.
I like to cross check claims posted at SkS.
-
michael sweet at 21:34 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct,
Everyone informed knows that no power plants ru all the time. In the USA the average capacity factor of coal plants was 40% in 2020. Nuclear plants in most countries have capacity factors less than 70%— and they don't count long term outages for major overhauls. Many fossil peaking power plants have capacity factors less than 20%.
Just not in for informational purposes. I like to cross check biased posts.
-
MA Rodger at 21:07 PM on 13 October 2022Temp record is unreliable
Wongfeihung1984 @527,
Proxy data of varying usefulness allows a global temperature record with reducing detail back 500 million years.
Widely known, the ice core data go back 100ky in the Arctic & 800k in the Antarctic while similar isotope dating methods in ocean sediments provide data back to, for instance in the graph above, the 65My of Zachos et al (2001), or the 5.3My of Lisiecki & Raymo (2005) which for most purposes can be converted into a global temperature record.
While generally 'reliable', such data-use is considered less than 'reliable' for some purposes so perhaps the 2,000ky record of Snyder (2016) which uses multiple proxies is likely the longest that could be properly termed 'reliable'. -
Jim Hunt at 19:08 PM on 13 October 2022Hurricane Ian: When the power grid goes out, could solar and batteries power your home?
Note that electric vehicle OEMs other than Ford have been offering production vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid capable cars and vans for over a decade.
Nissan in Japan for example:
https://V2G.co.uk/2012/06/nissan-announce-leaf-to-home-power-supply-system/
Powerwalls on wheels! -
David-acct at 13:00 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
Nigel and one planet - It would be logical to use the retired fossil fuel plants. However, there are logistical reasons why it is often impractical
first, the footprint per watts is substantially larger for solar (and wind), 10x-25x. So often there simply isnt enough available land for solar.
second, there is the cost of removing the existing plant. major reason why solar farms are build on raw land.
third, as renewable pentration increases, there problems of grid stability greatly increase.
-
David-acct at 12:54 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
As I previously stated, I like to cross check the data presented.
The article notes that 85% of new installation was from clean sources. Included in that 85% is solar. The LBNL states that 12.5Gw (ac on annual basis) was solar. Note that the 12.5Gw is name plate capacity. Actual average capacity was 24.8%. (information confirmed with joachim seel and mark bollinger of LBNL)
Just noting for informational purposes and honest assessment, that the installed green capacity is over stated
from paragraph 2 of the lbnl report. "A record of nearly 12.5 GWAC of new utility-scale PV capacity came online in 2021, bringing cumulative installed capacity to more than 51.3 GWAC across 44 states"
-
nigelj at 06:45 AM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
OPOF @1. Good points / questions.
"3. Why aren't new generation facilities being built immediately adjacent to, or on the property of, the soon to be moth-balled power generation facilities (where the transmission infrastructure already exists)? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that."
I remembered reading about this recently. Some progress is being made according to this commentary although its on already mothballed sites: "In a Twist, Old Coal Plants Help Deliver Renewable Power. Here’s How."
www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/climate/coal-plants-renewable-energy.html
-
One Planet Only Forever at 05:58 AM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
Great presentation of the magnitude and nature of the problem that developed in the USA. There are many points for people, especially those in leadership roles, to seriously ponder. I will highlight a few that I see.
1. There is a problem with the statement that "...some experts believe that climate advocacy in the U.S. may need to shift from a focus on stopping fossil fuel infrastructure to one that centers on enabling the clean energy infrastructure that will displace it." Wouldn't anyone deemed to be an expert on the topic understand that both things, discouraging and opposing fossil fuel development and encouraging and supporting renewable energy development, needed to be done from the beginning?
2. Why aren't the new generation facilities being built near the users, ideally being built within the developed areas of the users? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
3. Why aren't new generation facilities being built immediately adjacent to, or on the property of, the soon to be moth-balled power generation facilities (where the transmission infrastructure already exists)? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
4. Why isn't power system infrastructure and management throughout the USA already allowing home and business owners to set up their own generation units and be able to export excess to the grid or draw from the grid as needed (it has been 30 years since the need for change was undeniable)? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
5. Why is the marketplace of popularity and profit not seen to be the major problem developer, and major resistance to correction, that it undeniably is?
6. The real obvious need is reducing the per-person demand for energy. Why is that seldom part of the discussed actions? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
-
Bob Loblaw at 01:16 AM on 12 October 2022Temp record is unreliable
Wongfeihung1984:
Every method of calculating (from direct measurements of local temperatures) or estimating (via proxy, satellite, etc) global temperatures has uncertainties. "Reliable" is a subjective term, and is not very useful.
Each original source of a global temperature time series will have some sort of indication of uncertainty. You really need to pick a particular method, find the original source, and see what it says. Generally, uncertainty will increase as you go back in time, and as you move towards more local temperatures from fewer data sources.
The Tai-Chi link in my comment #526 includes this graphic, as an example, showing one standard deviation in the uncertainty:
-
Wongfeihung1984 at 01:06 AM on 12 October 2022Temp record is unreliable
Hi Eclectic, yeah, he's not a skeptic he's a denialist, you are right. And thank you for your comment, I'll be sure to pass it on to him.
I have a follow-up question: how far back can we have reliable temperature measurements ? 100 000 years ? 800 000 years?Best regards
-
Bob Loblaw at 04:28 AM on 11 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
I just took a look at the CoCoRaHS site and its link to where you can buy the precipitation gauge. It is very similar to the "Type B" gauge that used to be the standard across Canada for manual rain gauges. I've emptied a few of those over the years....
You can read more about Canada's manual precipitation standards (including a picture of the Type B) at this link.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 03:20 AM on 11 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Hi Bob, Just one note: I have the Cocorahs gauge and bought several more for friends. I don't participate yet because I am away too much right now to take daily readings. When that situation changes, I will start doing that.
I will read through those references about the instruments, recording and processing, thanks.
-
bbrowett at 02:37 AM on 11 October 2022Climate Change: They Lied
FUDG, Fear Uncertainty Doubt Greenwashing: Needs to be added to our lexicon. Updating the acronym Fear Uncertainty Doubt (FUD) for the Climate Emergency inaction period we are in we get Fear Uncertainty Doubt Greenwashing (FUDG) ... and yes I mean to imply the pun.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:49 PM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Although all of this precipitation gauge discussion may seem to be getting off-topic, I think it gives an interesting perspective in the gory details of weather observations and the things that need to be considered in processing "raw" measurements for trend analysis.
The OP points out that the paper in question has cherry-picked a few analyses that failed to cover a lot of what has been looked at in the literature. Often, proper analysis of weather data needs to understand the intricacies of the measurements - how instruments and processing change over time, the strengths and weaknesses of different measurement technologies, etc. Is the measurement system in question capable of extracting the signal that the analysis is looking for?
If the analysis fails to understand exactly what the measurements represent, and treats a long time series of varying instruments and processing methods as if each reading is 100% reliable, then the analysis will be misleading - possibly misleading the person doing the analysis, let alone the reader.
Caveat emptor.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:37 PM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric:
Ahhh, you're familiar with and participate in CoCoRaHS. That's good. That is an important volunteer network that helps fill in a lot of gaps in the North American precipitation monitoring network.
The 1-minute record precipitation value you link to is interesting. The paper chart system used in that measurement is very simlar to what you see in this Wikipedia image of a thermo-hygrograph:
The paper is mounted on a drum that rotates on a clock mechanism. The measurement system controls a pen that moves up and down. Since the pen follows an arc, the lines of equal time on the chart are curved. In the case of the Fischer-Porter precipitation gauge, full travel covers 6 inches of precipitation - but the mechanism is double-jointed: you get 0-6" on an upward arc, then 6-12" on a downward arc. In the chart image on your link, you can see the 1,2,3,4,5 - 7,8,9,10,11 markings on the left-most chart. Quite the mechanical design!
The link that I gave in comment #12 has further details on the recording of precipitation from the US Fischer-Porter network, including a mention of the 15-minute measurements. Although they talk of a "Fischer-Porter" network, most of the automated systems in the US have been using the Geonor T-200 gauges for quite a long time. MSC also makes extensive use of those gauges, but is replacing them with Ott Puvio2 gauges. Fischer-Porter also morphed into Belfort (which still makes gauges), so you'll see that name commonly, too.
The US and Canada have been moving to more frequent readings than 15-minutes, but as I mentioned the character of the gauges is that the noise makes it very hard to detect small precipitation amounts.
Here are a few references to processing of data from the US network:
Baker, B. C., R. Buckner, W. Collins, and M. Phillips, 2005a: Calculation of USCRN precipitation from Geonor weighing precipitation gauge. NOAA Tech. Note NCDC-USCRN-05-1, 27 pp.
Baker, B. C., L. Larson, E. May, H. Bogin, and B. Collins, 2005b: Final report: Operational testing of various precipitation sensors in support of the United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN). NOAA Tech. Note NCDC-USCRN-05-2, 69 pp.
Leeper, Ronald D., Michael A. Palecki, and Egg Davis, 2015: Methods to Calculate Precipitation from Weighing-Bucket Gauges with Redundant Depth Measurements. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 32, 1179–1190.
As for tipping buckets: at least in Canada they do collect data at one-minute intervals, although that data is not automatically visible to the general public. It is used in the IDF curve analysis I linked to earlier.
-
Eclectic at 13:02 PM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
The lead article is also duplicated on ATTP (andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com)
of October 7, 2022.
More than 100 responses at ATTP ~ for those readers with an idle hour, seeking entertainment.
Lots of good comments: from Bob Loblaw, Dikranmarsupial, as well as the deft Willard, and others.
Moderator Response:[BL] The direct link to the post at ATTP is this.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 04:58 AM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Thanks Bob. Your information brought to mind an old link I saved: wmo.asu.edu/content/world-greatest-one-minute-rainfall. The weighing gauge pen jumped 1.34 inches in less than a minute according to that summary. When I thought about the motor pulling paper from the spool I thought what if the motor stops, then restarts? Then the trace would show an artificial jump. Presumably they analyzed the 50 minute interval to determine that the motor didn't have any hiccups, that the paper didn't bind, etc. Also I'm not sure if the motor is turned on and off to move the paper each minute or if it is always on and geared down to move the paper very slowly.
In any case it brings up another point about the short duration rainfalls. Tipping bucket gauges have to be read and ASOS reads every minute. However I believe they only send cumulative amounts at 5 or 15 minute intervals. That may vary and they may or may not retain the one minute readings internally. In any case to beat the world's one minute rainfall record we need one minute resolution.
I have a Rainwise tipping bucket gauge and with an 8 inch diameter I consider it barely adequate for rainfall accuracy (I stand out in the rain to check it against my Cocorahs guage). There are many smaller diameter buckets on the market and I would consider them potentially inaccurate. So while there may be more collection points now they may not be accurate. The second problem is time resolution. I collect measurements once a minute and save them. The measurements fall off the queue after about a day. I could save them permanently but if there's an extreme rainfall I copy the data before I lose the measurements.
The bottom line is that it may be difficult to beat old records made by weighing gauges simply because technology has gotten cheaper and less accurate (IMO).
-
One Planet Only Forever at 04:09 AM on 10 October 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Eagle the Greek,
My initial reaction to your comment was to ask for clarification, and specific examples, regarding your belief that "Both side of the argument have big misunderstandings".
But, upon further consideration of your entire comment from the perspective of the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of how to sustainably improve things for the future of humanity, I wish to provide the following context as the reasonable common sense basis for your response.
Human activity can undeniably influence the environment of this planet on a local and global scale. But it is unlikely that humans will even learn enough to accurately control the results of human development impacts. The environment, local and global, is amazingly complex. It was not just made for humans to do whatever they wish with. The best that can be hoped for from humans, with their ability for thoughtfulness, is increased awareness and improved understanding of unsustainable harmful activity governing leadership actions to limit the harm done by people who have developed a liking for 'other interests' which keeps them from helpfully self-governing, keeps them from learning to be less harmful and more helpful members of global humanity.
Human actions add up. So everyone needs to be helped to limit harm done. Being a better person would also involve being more helpful to others, not just less harmful, to help develop a sustainable improving future for all of global humanity. Admittedly that may require some supposedly higher status humans to lose some developed perceptions of superiority.
Human actions can be negative or positive from the perspective of developing sustainable ways of living and sustainable improvements. And it is undeniable that a lot of negative (harmful unsustainable) activity has developed, especially by the supposedly more advanced portion of the global population.
With that understanding as the context, please elaborate on your belief that there are "big misunderstandings" on both sides of the CO2 debate, understanding that CO2 impacts are not the only human activities causing rapid ∆T. The response also needs to be consistent with the awareness and understanding of all the other harmful unsustainable impacts of human activity which includes many other harmful impacts of fossil fuel use, not just the increase of CO2 levels.
And, of course, a reasonable response would also be consistent with the understanding that fossil fuels are not renewable. Future generations will have to live without benefiting from burning them. And an challenging perspective is that human impacts causing slight global warming may be helpful in the future by limiting the changes of the next natural glaciation event. That next glaciation is expected to be at least 50,000 years away (lots of studies indicate that approximate date. But some studies have indicated that the warming impact to date is delaying the onset of the next glaciation to be about 100,000 years from now.
It would be great if lots of easy to access fossil fuels were available at that time for humans to cautiously limit the challenges of that next natural glaciation. And the other benefits of rapidly ending fossil fuel use to leave the stuff for those distant future generations are the reduced harm done today and to generations in the more immediate future.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:38 PM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric. Thank you for the updated links.
In your second link, which allows searching for stations, the top title is a link to this web page that give an indication of the instrumentation that is used to collect this data. On that page we see (emphasis added):
The Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Hourly Precipitation Data (HPD) consists of quality controlled precipitation amounts, which are measurements of hourly accumulation of precipitation, including rain and snow for approximately 2,000 observing stations around the country, and several U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific from the National Weather Service (NWS) Fischer-Porter Network.
The Fischer-Porter is a weighing-type automated precipitation gauge. You can read a little bit about it here. Old data will have been on the paper coded tapes described in that link, but a lot of more recent data (last 30 years) will have been "modified for remote transmission" (interpretation: modified for electronic readouts).
Weighing gauges in general are poor at determining small amounts of precipitation over short intervals. The noise characteristics are not good. The gauge just tells you "this is how much weight I have now", and you need to process that into a change in weight over time to determine precipitation amounts. That can be done externally using the raw weights, but modern gauges may have internal electronics that will do the processing - for better or for worse. You have a classic "signal to noise" ratio problem with small changes.
Weighing gauges should be more reliable for heavier rainfall amounts, but they are still a limiting technology. There are many other brands of weighing gauges, too - Geonor, Pluvio and Pluvio2 are ones that I have worked with. They are generally better at cumulative rainfall estimates over longer periods of time. (One of their advantages is that they collect snow as well as rain.)
Short term rainfall intensity data are more commonly collected using tipping bucket technology, which can provide one-minute rainfall intensity data. Tipping buckets have problems at high rainfall rates, and are not so good for long-term cumulative amounts, so many automated stations (virtually all at Canadian automated stations) will have both types.
Intensity-Duration-Frequency curves are a standard part of precipitation analysis. They are needed for engineering design (drainage design) and are useful for many hydrological and ecological purposes. You can read more about the Canadian methodology and results by following the links on this page.
Any precipitation gauge will have issues with "capture efficiency" at high winds. Winds cause turbulence around the gauge, which general causes the gauge to under-collect. Much more important for snow, but still a factor with rain. Most automated weighing gauges will be installed with some sort of wind shield to help with this. Tipping buckets are usualy mounted close to the surface, where wind is less of a factor. Getting data that have been adjusted for wind capture efficiency is often very difficult.
Changes in instrumentation (which automated gauge, what wind shielding, how the data are processed) will be inportant in looking at trends.
And none of that helps much with the problems of localized storms passing between recording stations.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 11:15 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Bob, here's an example of one of the files I used www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/coop-hourly-precipitation/v2/access/USC00010957.csv. for Boaz, AL. It is a daily report but it contains hourly amounts, IIRC hundredths of an inch as an integer. I got to the list of stations using a search: www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/search/data-search/coop-hourly-precipitation?dataTypes=HR00Val. Sorry my link above was not the hourly precipitation search result that I intended to show.
Yes, I am careful using temperature readings from sources like that where they typically had late afternoon readings which easily double counted high temperatures in the decades before the 1960's or 1970's (cutover to electronic or different ToD varies by station).
-
Bob Loblaw at 06:13 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric:
From the first paragraph of the link to the COOP web page you provide (emphasis added):
COOP data usually consist of daily maximum and minimum temperatures, snowfall, snow depth, and 24-hour precipitation totals.
Next question:
How did your analysis determine 1-hour and 6-hour totals from that data?
Hint: the COOP network involves manual reading of data. Temperature from a max/min thermometer (once per day), and precipitation total from a rain gauge that sits and collects rainfall for 24 hours, and is emptied manually and the quantity measured (once per day).
Side note: this is the network that requires the time of day adjustment for temperature trends.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 05:09 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Bob, there were 577 stations with reasonable coverage since 1950. There were more stations with sparse coverage which I ignored. I also ignored stations with < 70 years of coverage. They all start with USC and USW, then a station number. The data is described and available here Cooperative Observer Network (COOP). While it doesn't mean there is scientific value to the data, I certainly appreciate the efforts of thousands of observers manually entering data every hour or more often in some cases, and others who transcribed it.
As we've discussed before you believe the way to analyze global warming influences is to look at changes in the distribution over time. I prefer to leave out most of the data for rainfall since I am only interested in one thing: the maximum amount of rain in the interval annually (and annually by month). Why I want that trend is simple, that amount is what creates the largest runoff. I fully agree that distributions will show changes skewing in various ways to higher amounts of rainfall in some subset of events determined to be extreme.
In many cases they will use the top 0.1% of events. But with roughly 100 rainfall events per year, that's just one event per 10 years. However they can look at numerous stations over a region (as few as 10) to get the same number of data points as I use.
One Planet, I agree. Counts are only a subset of available data. The data includes TOR_F_SCALE, TOR_LENGTH, TOR_WIDTH, property damage estimates, and a variety of text. Not all events will have all the fields and the text varies greatly. But a careful analysis would use as much as possible. I would also look more thoroughly for seasonal changes because there are some (November increases in particular) even if annual counts are down. The tornado data also comes from the NCEI (formerly NCDC). Storm Events Database
Hurricane data is IBTRACS from here International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS)
-
Bob Loblaw at 03:43 AM on 9 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
The albedo argument of Ellis and Palmer is an odd one. They explicitly state in their section 3.2 that they think it is incorrect to consider the albedo effect as a global one. In discussing the common approach to albedo feedback amounts, and comparing it to the CO2 feedback, they state:
The strength of the albedo feedback was calculated as being in the same range, or about 3 W/m2 over the full interglacial cycle (Hansen et al., 2012, Fig. 5c and p12). This figure was derived by equating albedo with sea levels, and therefore with ice extent, which spreads the albedo effect out across the entire globe in a similar fashion to the calculation for CO2. But this is likely to be an erroneous procedure.
They go on to argue that their localized "one day, one latitude" calculation of radiative effects is the proper one to use. They conclude one paragraph with:
As Fig. 3 clearly demonstrates, interglacials are only ever triggered by Great Summer insolation increases in the northern hemisphere and never by increases in insolation during the southern Great Summer, so why spread the influence of albedo across the entire globe?
To put it simply, the change in local or regional albedo represents one part of global albedo. To address the question of how much solar radiation the globe absorbs (which is the proper question for looking at global climate), you need to consider all of the globe - each latitude, each day, and each individual surface cover. The contribution of a single location is directly proportional to the area it covers - as a fraction of the total area of the planet.
Global changes in global albedo, caused by large white ice sheets replacing dark forests (or the reverse), is an important feedback. When climate science speaks "albedo feedback", it is this large scale issue that they mean, not Ellis and Palmer's local microclimate one.
The Rapp et al unpublished paper that MA Rodger refers to is an interesting side note. It still focuses on albedo and high-latitude insolation. It at least considers the entire year, not just the summer solstice, but it's efforts at modelling still are extremely simplistic - empirical fits between ice volume and variations in solar input. No actual climate model to provide precipitation inputs or melt processes, or glacier dynamics models to accumulate ice and move it from zones of accumulation to zones of melt.
The Rapp et al paper also seems to be rather confused about CO2 as a feedback vs. CO2 as a forcing. They argue against a straw man: that mainstream climate science thinks that CO2 is supposed to force the glacial/interglacial cycles. (It does not.) CO2 is one feedback. The overall CO2 level influences whether climate will respond to Milankovitch cycles by producing glacial/interglacial cycles, but it does not cause the individual glacial/interglacial periods. A world at 200 ppm CO2, a world at 300 ppm CO2, and a world at 450 ppm CO2 will not respond to orbital changes in solar insolation in exactly the same way.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 02:30 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric,
I suspect that a simple 'tornado count' of each intensity level is not the best measure of tornado activity. A better measure would be the sum of the length of tornado impact, either in time or physical distance travelled, for each intensity level.
That probably also applies to cyclones. The total duration or distance of each level of intensity would be more meaningful than a simple count. And, of course, the measure has to be of all cyclones, not just the Atlantic ones called hurricanes, and definitely not just the cyclones that make landfall on USA territory. And Tropical Storm level cyclones also need to be part of the evaluation, especially the magnitude of rain fall from them.
-
MA Rodger at 00:49 AM on 9 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
One criticism of Ellis & Palmer (2016) that can be hurled with some confidence is that it has not exactly set the literature alight since it was published six long years ago. That tends to suggest it presents a badly failed hypothesis.
I note one of the citations listed by Google Scholar is for a later unpublished work co-authored by Ellis (evidently 2019 or later) which doen't make such a big thing about this CO2-dust mechanism, although it does continue to stress that CO2 was not the main driver of the ice-age cycles, which most would agree with.
One of the factors working against the grand assertion of Ellis & Palmer (2016), that CO2 leads to reduced plant-growth and thus more dust & lower albedo; one factor is the switch of ice-age period from 40k to 100k. This switch is usually explained by the dust during the earlier 40k phase being diminished as the bare plantless lands close-by glaciated areas were being scoured clean of any dust-generating soils by prior glaciations, scoured back to the bedrock. If this dust is alternatively explained by reduced CO2 suppressing plant-growth, the 40k-100k transition requires a new explanation. And given this requirement the apparent silence by Ellis & Palmer (2016) on the matter is entirely wrong.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:41 PM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric:
What source of rainfall data did you use in your U.S. analysis? How did you determine the frequencies?
Analsysis of rainfall data suffers from three major complications:
- The observing network is very sparse. It is capable of providing a pretty good representation of regional temperatures that change relatively slowly over moderate distances, but precipitation (especially short-term localized storms such as thunderstorms) often slips between the gaps and gets missed.
- Records from individual stations are often lacking in detection of extreme events, so determining a "100-year storm" is not as simple as looking at the biggest storm in a 100-year record.
- Relatively few stations have rainfall data at sub-hourly time resolution. The instrumentation that can provide data at this time scale is usually different from what is often used at hourly or 6-hour time scales.
The solution to these problems involves looking at many stations over a region, and fitting statistical distributions to the records. The statistical distributions are then used to derive estimates of 5-minute, 1-hour, 6-hour, etc. duration extreme events.
There is also rainfall data available from radar systems. An example of a system that incorporates station precipitation gauge values with radar and model estimates can be seen here:
https://centreau.org/en/events-news/events/introduction-to-the-canadian-precipitation-analysis-capa/
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:20 PM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
nigel:
You have to read the paper to try to follow the logic (as such) of their argument about CO2 and temperature. It is rather convoluted.
Section 2 of their paper discusses the Milankovitch cycles, and introduces their "see - huge difference in input of energy on summer solstice at 65N" calculation. They use this to argue that albedo reductions due to dust on snow are the real feedback factor explaining how Milankovitch cycles can grow or melt a continental glacier.
In section 3, they do their bogus comparison between the dust-albedo feedback and CO2 radiative effects.
In section 4, they expand on the dust albedo factors.
In section 5, they give their hypothesis how low CO2 leads to reductions in vegetation cover, and how this is what leads to high dust concentrations that accumulate on the ice/snow of the glaciers. It's this last step that allows low albedo that allows the increased solar input (again, summer solstice at 65N) of the Milankovitch cycles to trigger deglaciation.
At the end of it all, they are basically saying that nothing else makes much difference as Milankovitch cycles go through their many wiggles, until vegetation gets so low and albedo of the snow and ice gets low enough so that a high in the 65N summer solstice Milankovitch cycle can finally melt a continent worth of ice.
It's all hanging together by a very thin thread, and their "analysis" is sadly lacking in any sort of model that actually incorporates anything of global/regional climate, the carbon cycle, and glacial dynamics and accumulation/melt.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 23:14 PM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Clausius-Clapeyron means that with global warming the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. Whether it does hold more water vapor depends on a surprisingly complex set of factors. Drought intensification is a simpler case. C-C means there almost always be more evaporation and will often (not always) be more transpiration.
Short term rainfall is a much more complex case. I have found no trend in US 1 hour to 6 hour rainfalls in 500+ stations over 70 years. However as rainfalls get progressively longer (6 instead of 1) there are consistently more increasing trends and fewer declining trends. That's also why we almost never see a new 1 or 5 or 10 minute rainfall record. C-C has essentially zero influence at the very short term. But C-C definitely has more influence at the longer durations which is why we see new 24 hour (and longer) all-time records being set like with Harvey. But Harvey brings up an important point, the water vapor has to come from somewhere and it came a warmer gulf of Mexico. That much is quite obvious.
There are changes in regional tornado climatology. I have yet to do that analysis and it will be a bit difficult with relatively rare events. But overall in the US EF-3 and EF-4 tornadoes are declining, EF-5 are statistically flat. There are flat statistics for winter and generally declining statistics for warmer months, but fewer declines 1990-present than 1950-present. In short, complicated and dependent on time periods affected by natural cycles. Easy to cherry pick.
My Atlantic hurricane analysis found a notable uptick in >= 120 knot storms. I set that threshold to avoid the small numbers problems using categories. RI is interesting, someone needs to write a paper with a new definition because the old definition (>= 30 knots increase in 24 hours) is true for 60% of Atlantic hurricanes. The increase in RI from warmer oceans shows up most strongly at >= 40 knots in 24 hours. Ian met that threshold. But there's also an increase in rapid weakening over water. Over land weakening is expected and I exclude all such cases. Globally Ryan Maue's data shows fewer hurricanes but the average hurricane in stronger. Also have to be careful not to cherry pick intervals.
Overall I agree with the article above that there are many other impacts that need to be considered. That's particularly true if we are going to decide how to rationally spend money on impact mitigation.
-
nigelj at 08:07 AM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
Something obvious seems to have been missed here. The paper says that increased CO2 leads to more greening of the planet and thus less dust on the ice sheets, and so a cooling effect (parpahrasing). But we have had increased CO2 and increased greening of the planet and a warming effect. Doesn't this failure of their prediction kill their idea dead, all other things being equal?
-
nigelj at 07:59 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Sea level rise appears to be following a quadratic (parabolic) curve. Perhaps this is not surprising because steadly increasing and accumulating CO2 levels in the atmophere and known positive feedbacks causing the warming trend, would be consistent with a parabolic function, and not so much a linear or exponential function. But if antarctic ice sheets physically destabilise that could be a local exponential function.
-
Bob Loblaw at 04:09 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
To pick a nit, I think your trajectory after jumping off a cliff is best described by an elliptical function, with the centre of the earth as one of the focii. You are launching yourself into orbit - albeit a short one once the earth gets in the way.
Next best approximation is a parabola, and that probably fits an exponential increase in vertical speed to a pretty high accuracy.
The one thing it definitely is not, is linear. That very rapidly becomes obvious.
But then, the contrarian industry has long had a habit of trying to force reality to fit their beliefs - e.g. the infamous North Carolina effort to declare that sea level was only allowed to change based on a linear extrapolation of past readings.
-
ubrew12 at 03:51 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
If the authors of this paper find no statistical evidence of climate change on weather events, it seems incumbent on them to posit a reason.
From the conclusions section: "It would be nevertheless extremely important to define mitigation and adaptation strategies that take into account current trends." This seems reasonable except for two things:
1) the authors are saying the current trends are indistinguishable from zero.
2) Even if nonzero, nobody expects 'current trends' to remain current for long, in an exponential phenomenon.
You can't look at what is happening and conclude anything else: that we're in the midst of something best explained by the exponential function. Which is also used to describe things that are exploding.
After sea level rises 3 feet, it's easy to say we should have done something. But the actual moment to do something is when you jump off the cliff, not when you hit bottom (btw, your trajectory after jumping off a cliff is also best described by the exponential function).
-
Bob Loblaw at 02:46 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
...just as a rigorous, thorough medical examinaton of a person falling off a high-rise building could say "no signs of any harm yet" - as long as they finished before the person reached the ground.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 01:51 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
I am sure that a rigorous accurate detailed evaluation of water use in the Colorado Basin could also conclude that there is no evidence of a crisis or emegency.
Only a few users of water have been getting less than they want ... so far.
-
Bob Loblaw at 01:41 AM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
OPOF:
In the paper, Ellis and Palmer make no direct mention of any implications of their work for future climate. As it stands, it is a simple attempt to understand what might have happened in past climates.
Of course, the reason why the discipline of climatology looks at past climates is due to the old adage "the past is the key to the future". If we understand how and why climate has changed in the past, we have a greater chance of being able to predict future events. The IPCC reports give extensive coverage to past climates, for this specific purpose.
We can only guess what Ellis and Palmer wished to imply - if we restrict ourselves to what they say in this paper (which is the proper way to review a paper). But it is easy to see why this paper is attractive to those that wish to imply that CO2 has no radiative effect.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 07:47 AM on 7 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
Ellis and Palmer's story and its potential appeal, in addition to presenting significant misunderstandings, is an example of what can happen when scientific investigation of a part of the bigger picture fails to be presented in the full context of the bigger picture.
Even if the investigation and reporting about the part is accurate, failing to situate it in the bigger picture, especially failing to investigate and present the potential harms associated with the part being investigated, can end up being applied to develop harmful popular and profitable beliefs and activity (it actually often happens).
Learning about the constantly improving understanding of what is harmful and unsustainable is fought against by people who develop a powerful interest in 'evading learning to be less harmful and more helpful'.
Bee's even offer an example. The scientific development of chemicals that can be profitable did not include an indepth investigation of the more complex potential for harm to be done (that is difficult because of the complexity, and it would be expensive and take time). And now the people profiting who did not do that 'harder to do' investigation of the potential harm get to 'legally' demand that 'others have to do the harder work of conclusively proving the harm done (like the tobacco people still claim that the exact biological mechanisms of harm caused by smoking are not conclusively proven'. The scientifically beneficial development of the chemical was quickly embraced and exploited without serious concern for potential harm done.
Back to the story made up by Ellis and Palmer. Aspects of it are attactive to people wanting to ignore the harm of fossil fuel use ... because they benefit from fossil fuel use, and fossil fuel use got to be popular and profitable before the harmful consequences were investigated and better understood.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:37 PM on 6 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
ubrew12:
The mechanism that Ellis and Palmer argue for their low CO2=low vegetation (cover, not height), is rather convoluted and you need to read their paper to see what they say. It's covered in their section 5.
Part of what they do is summarized in table 4 of their paper, where they list reductions in CO2 affecting treeline. They use CO2 values of 150 for alpine treeline (2000m altitude), and 115 for tropical treeline (4000m altitude)....
...but you need to carefully read the table to notice that they are using CO2 values in μbar, not ppm. How do they get these numbers? Well, at sea level (1 bar, or 1000 mb pressure), an interglacial CO2 concentration of 300ppm equates to 300 μbar, and a glacial CO2 concentration of 190 ppm translates to 190 μbar. They then use the standard decrease in pressure with height - at 4000m, pressure drops to about 620 mb - and 190 ppm translates to a partial pressure of CO2 of only 115 μbar.
When I read the Gerhard and Wort paper Ellsi and Palmer cite, it does not support using CO2 values in μbar. It does discuss plant response vs. altitude, and plant response at low CO2 levels, but nearly all the discussion focuses on units of ppm.
So, like the flying bee example, Ellis and Palmer choose to do a unit conversion and calculation that favours the conclusion they want to support, without really justifying the logic. Perhaps someone who knows plant physiology better than I can provide a solid argument why partial pressure rather than concentration is important for plant uptake of CO2, but Ellis and Palmer do not convince me.
