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Comments 3551 to 3600:

  1. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    @8 Cowpuncher
    "By breathing out, we are simply returning to the air the same CO2 that was there to begin with".

    Source: Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?

  2. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    @8 Cowpuncher

    Happer has a long list of touted climate myths.

    Climate Misinformation by Source: William Happer

  3. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    This 2021 paper refutes the conclusions of Sovacool et al. I don't believe the authors have any connection to the nuclear industry.

    link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01508-7.pdf

    CO2 emissions of nuclear power and renewable energies:
    a statistical analysis of European and global data

    'Our results are in complete contradiction to a recent publication (Sovacool et al. in Nat Energy 5:928–935,2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00696-3). The authors of this paper conclude that nuclear power does not reduce the CO2 emissions, but renewable power efficiently does. In addition, they argue that these two technologies crowd out each other. The possible reason for their claims may result from a specific conditioning of the data. In contrast, our analysis clearly confirms the adequacy of both nuclear and renewable power generation.'

  4. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    Rosross @4 :

    You are certainly correct - to some extent.   ( I agree with "OPOF" on that. )

    OPOF makes good points on the unhappy level of corruption/marketization of modern science.  It is something which a cynic would regard as difficult to avoid in this modern commercial world.

    #  Nevertheless, Rosross, the modern science system is like modern democracy  ~ far from perfect, yet better than any alternative so far tried.   If you have a more perfect (and practical !) system in mind, then it would be most interesting to read your description of it.   (Doubtless you know the old joke about the overly-critical voyeur.)

     

    Cowpuncher @8  ~ sorry, but your vanWijngaarden publications link shows as "highly insecure" and my computer won't proceed.   If you have some excellently salient points (from Wijngaarden & colleagues) then please summarize those points.

    Happer and vanW have received some earlier attention here at SkS  ~ and as far as I recall, they were not making any notable advance in climate science.   Basically, theirs was a re-hash of already-understood material . . . plus a large dob of bizarre motivated reasoning (but not as extreme as Lindzen's stuff).    ~Motivated reasoning strongly influenced by political extremism, I mean.   In other words, very poor science.

  5. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    Thank you Guest Author for this well written piece!  I wish everyone on this planet had a copy to read! 

  6. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    Thanks scaddenp.  I checked both your references and I didnt see "junk" in Happer's comment about CO2 being breathed out.  Also the list of "myths" are points of view shared by many scientists.  Some appear wrong, others sensible.  I suggest checking out  https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/publications/  It seems to me to include studies that deserves to be published and not shunned from a political perspective.  As I commented on the original paper it seems only some "new discoveries" can get published.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Link activated.

    The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.

    Note: the link does not seem problematic to my browser (later comment by eclectic notwithstanding).

  7. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    Cowpuncher - dont know van Wijingaarden, but in Happer case, yep, it is really hard to get your politically-motivated junk published. Getting basic errors through peer-review is a tough process.  If you have somehow missed Happer's problems - then try here skepticalscience.com/Evidence-Squared-10-Debunking-William-Happer-carbon-cycle-myth.html and here skepticalscience.com/William_Happer_arg.htm

  8. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    I am interested in the quote:  "Scientists are incentivized to find new discoveries, errors in each other’s work, or disconfirm existing knowledge, not to go with the flow. Individual scientists may dissent from the consensus... ".  In light of this why have scientists like van Wijngaarden and Happer found it difficult to have their work published?  Should this section of the paper not elaborated on the role that politics plays in science?

  9. One Planet Only Forever at 12:37 PM on 1 September 2022
    Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    Rosross @4,

    In a limited evidence based way I agree with you. A clear case is the ways that the 'science' of marketing is abused.

    There are many harmful misleading marketers. Regarding climate science they have misled people to delay the rate of increased awareness and understanding of climate science. They want to delay learning among the general (voting) population because that learning would lead to more rapid corrections of what has become popular and profitable. Those corrections, and making amends for harm done, would be disadvantageous to the misleading marketers and their misled fans.

  10. What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet?

    I had read of this study. I wish the expected minimum of GL melt were added to the expected SLR from land glaciers and thermal expansion plus an expected contribution from Antarctica. I believe SLR is tracking at or above IPCC maximum expectatons which would give 3-ft by 2100 without much contribution from the big ice sheets. The ARs have started icluded a footnote re the unlikely but feasible collapse of portions of the big ice sheets. But isn't collapsing how the Laurentide sheet left so quickly?

    Hansen, et al 2015 showed that melt water from the GIS could slow the overtuning current resulting in more warmth staying in the Southern Ocean at the same depth as the grounding line for Antarctic draining glaciers. DeConto Pollard 2015 modeled collapse mechanisms (structural instabilities) of tall ice cliffs produced by melting and calving of those glaciers.

    So I'd think the bad news from GL means bad news for the west and east Antarctic Ice Sheets and expected SLR by 2100 could be closer to 6' in a moderate emissions scenario. The question is, how much of that is already locked in? I understand the compulsion to not be too unconservative, but maybe it's time for a realistic look at what we are really expecting.

  11. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    This is an excellent article on what science should be, what science claims to be, what science at its very best must be, but the reality is that in this day and age and for much too long, this is not what the scientific system of enquiry is. That is the problem.

    This essay is like the Church in  centuries past claiming what it is, while ignoring the corruption and distortions inherent in its system. 

    Much of modern science is not science by any stretch of imagination and the vested agendas who use it as tool and weapon, make it impossible for it to be real science, good science. If only the scientific system of enquiry were as the writers so breathlessly describes. But it is not.

  12. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    "Who do you believe?" - wow, so much science! What is going here, folks? Is this some kind of bait for trolls? This thread does not look like a serious effort to summarize knowledge on nuclear, so I don't think anyone will respond.

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] As stated in the article, the primary purpose of this thread is to keep nuclear discussions away from other threads for people who want to talk about it. No one on the SksSc team has any particular expertise in the science of nuclear power though some frequent commentators here are well versed.

    SksSc would welcome guest contributions that are willing to focus on peer-reviewed papers. We would especially welcome any peer-reviewed rebuttals of Abbott. We are not particularly interested in the opinions of self-proclaimed experts that are not willing to back their assertions with reviewed references.

    Other sites are definitely a better place to discuss the economics, safety and politics of nuclear power.

  13. What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet?

    wayne @1,

    I'm not sure of which 'geological record' you are looking at, but I would reckon the tectonocally-changing 'geology' itself had some impact on the relative global temperature & thus sea level back when CO2 was last up at 425ppm.

    The last time we saw 425ppm would be back 13 million years ago when the Arctic had no ice caps. The Arctic began getting seriously icy about 3 million years ago, apparently due to the Panama Isthmus forming to connect N & S America. There was also a widening of Drakes Passage at this time. The climate went through some interesting periods at this time 3my ago, with a period of warming with rising CO2 (but not quite back up to 425ppm) leading on to cooling & the icy Arctic.

  14. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    Sekwisniewski:

    Analysis of lifecycle emissions of nuclear power compared to renewables by scientists generally indicate that nuclear plants emit 5-10 times as much carbon dioxide as renewables.  Nuclear industry sources find emissions are comparable.  Who do you believe?.

    Jacobson 2009 reviews the data at that time.   Since 2009 renewables have reduced their emissions while nuclear has not changed.  In addition, Jacobson calculates emissions due to opportunity cost.  

    It takes about 2-4 years to plan and build wind and solar plants.  It takes about 10-14 years to plan and build a nuclear plant.  For the entire time you are building the nuclear plant you have to use fossil fuels.  You save much more carbon by building the rapidly completed renewable energy plants.

    Since 2009 the cost of renewables has plummeted.  Nuclear costs have risen.  Nuclear reduces carbon much slower and at much greater cost.  For me that is not "on par" with wind and solar.   Some people do not care about time and cost and feel nuclear is comparable.

  15. What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet?

    I thought I read that at 425ppm global sea rise would be 25m just based on the geological record?

  16. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    Both renewables and nuclear decarbonize.

    Fell, H., Gilbert, A., Jenkins, J. D., & Mildenberger, M. (2022). Nuclear power and renewable energy are both associated with national decarbonization. Nature Energy, 7(1), 25-29. [Link]

    ...which is a response to flawed analysis found here:

    Sovacool, B. K., Schmid, P., Stirling, A., Walter, G., & MacKerron, G. (2020). Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power. Nature Energy, 5(11), 928-935. [Link]

    Nuclear is low carbon, on par with wind and solar, right?

  17. How not to solve the climate change problem

    Your welcome. The US wants to bring factories back from China. They could put some in Brazil in exchange for keeping the rainforest and the factories could provide employment for those that were converting the rainforest into farms and probably many others. Plus the US companies would get cheap labor.

  18. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    I really like this post, too.

    One of the things that might raise eyebrows is the claim that with science "bad ideas are weeded out and good ideas are built upon". In this sentence, the words "bad" and "good" have a fairly specific context. As described later in the article, this is not about moral good or moral bad, or good/bad as personal preferences. It is about ideas that enable us to make good evaluations of the world around us - evaluations that help us understand and predict how the world works (whether we like it or not).

    Good ideas also gives us clues to the uncertainty in our understanding. People who are dogmatically certain about their viewpoints are not being very scientific. (And, yes, the IPCC looks at uncertainties.)

    One of the ways that science works is by looking at competing explanations from the point of view of "what is the difference in the predictions they make?" If two ideas result in no differences, then they are functionally identical. Only by their differences can you tell them apart - and then going out and observing what actually happens will tell you which idea is more likely to be correct. A track record of accurate predictions gives confidence.

    And we prefer explanations that can make a lot of accurate predictions with fewer assumptions. If every prediction fails and requires adding new assumptions to fit the observations, then the explanation is not very good.

    With good scientific ideas, we can get reliable predictions about things we have not yet seen or measured - what will happen if we add more CO2 to the atmosphere, where to dig to find gold, how to make a faster airplane, what will be most the likely outcome of a particular medical treatment, etc. We know that falling off a tall building is dangerous because we truly do understand that gravity still works.

  19. Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    Excellent commentary. I dont recall learning anything  in school about the scientific method or the purpose of science or logical thinking skills. The cynic in me thinks this is because the education system didn't want young people learning analytical skills, and  thinking too much for themselves, and therefore maybe challenging the teachers!

  20. One Planet Only Forever at 05:14 AM on 31 August 2022
    A next-level water crisis: Colorado River Basin faces Tier 2 restrictions

    Jimspy,

    Agreed that self interest governed by the pursuit of increased awareness and understanding of what is harmful is essential to sustainably improve things (truly make things better).

    The best 'certain to be viable' futures for humanity appear to require all humans to be governed by the pursuit of learning and accepting the diversity of ways to be human that fit into, are sustainable parts of, the robust diversity of life on this amazing planet.

    Everyone self governing that way would be great ... But that is unlikely (a fantasy). Some people will likely need to be governed by others to limit the harm they cause in pursuit of personal benefit.

  21. Reposted articles from Thinking is Power

    Updated the overview page for our Thinking is Power reposts with a mention of Melanie Trecek-King's highly recommended article Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

  22. A next-level water crisis: Colorado River Basin faces Tier 2 restrictions

    "Self interested pursuit of benefit" is OK as long as it is informed by the human capacity for abstraction and the realization that altruism, or even pseudo-altruism, can inure to one's benefit.  It's called "enlightened self-interest." I fear we as a species have been losing that quality of late.  

  23. One Planet Only Forever at 04:42 AM on 31 August 2022
    Science: What it is, how it works, and why it matters

    This is another excellent presentation by Melanie.

    That should be a reasonable common sense understanding. I think the following are related reasonable common sense understandings:

    • Evidence reduces the range of reasonable explanations for what is going on.
    • To be sustainable, explanations have to be consistent with all of the available evidence (observations and information).
    • When reliable new evidence that is not consistent with a developed understanding emerges, the understanding needs to be updated to be consistent with all of the available, now expanded, reliable evidence.
    • Ethical and moral understanding needs to be fundamentally governed by the pursuit of increased awareness and understanding of actions that are harmful to others with the objective being to sustainably improve circumstances for others and make amends for harm done.
    • Scientific discovery of harm done is an important part of moral and ethical development. And morals and ethics should be expected to evolve as more is learned. But people benefiting from understandably harmful beliefs and actions can be expected to resist learning to be less harmful and more helpful (lots of evidence confirms that understanding).
  24. CO2 effect is saturated

    @MA Rodger 657

    Again, my apologies for going off topic.

    Thanks for the lengthy and indepth explanation.  I don't think I have seen such an explanation anywhere else I've looked.  I think it should be more prominently displayed for those like myself who do not understand how GHG's work to warm the atmosphere.

    It'll take me a 7 days of studying and contemplating your explanation, but I'm sure to have better understanding then.

    Best to you.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] I have added a lengthy moderators comment to your earlier post.

  25. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    Macquigg:

    I went to comment on your "more neutral forum" and I have been blocked. I only posted there once and did not violate the site rules.

    The moderators here allow nuclear posters. So much for your "neutral" forum.

  26. CO2 effect is saturated

    Likeitwarm @654&655,
    My comment @639 was specifically tailored and indeed a little nuanced to keep discussion within the thread's topic. So straying beyond that topic in a response would not be unsurprising.

    One point to make is that the pressure at the tropopause is usually given as a fifth of surface pressure (200 hPa) and certainly not a tenth. And its altitude commonly given as 12km.
    But more exactly, the tropopause changes in height and pressure a lot by latitude and also a bit by the seasons. It can be as high as 17km with pressures down to 110 hPa over the tropics and as low as 8km over the poles with pressures up to 310 hPa.
    Tropopause height&pressure by latitude&season

    CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere up to the top of the stratosphere at 50km altitude. (The bulk of atmospheric water vapour rains out low down in the troposphere, as demonstraed by the moderator-appended graphic @654.)

    You still seem concerned that high up in the atmosphere, the CO2 at altitude is well spread out as the pressure falls (so about a fifth the density at the tropopause) and also colder so there would be less thermal energy.
    And it is fundamentally this reduction in energy with altitude that drives the greenhouse effect.

    The greenhouse effect is all about the altitude at which upward-emitted IR can find holes inbetween the greenhouse gases above**, allowing the IR to escape from the atmosphere and exit into space.
    If that altitude were low down, the atmosphere will indeed be relatively warm and thus thermally energetic. This energy means the CO2 gets a lot of the thumping from air mollecules that sends it into the flap that can emit IR in the 15 micron wave band. And warmer air at this emissions altitude means there is a lot of the flapping CO2 at the emission altitude and thus a lot of IR pouring through the holes into space, cooling the planet.
    Note this emission altitude will always have the same amount of CO2 above. It is this physical presence determines the altitude where those holes appear to allow IR into space.

    When you then add CO2, the altitude with holes out to space becomes higher. And as the troposphere cools with altitude, and the air higher up is less energetic, it gives the CO2 less of a thumping, so with this dropping temperature there is less CO2 flapping and so there is less IR pourng out into space because of that additional CO2. That means less cooling so the planet will have to warm to find a new hotter equilibrium temperature.

    And don't think of this reduction as a small effect. There is 3,000,000,000,000 tons of CO2 in tha atmosphere and ~20% of it (so 600 billion tons) is up there playing a planet-warming game of 'catch the photon' high in the upper troposphere and today shooting something like 5,000TW out into space. (By comparison, today mankind's global primary energy use is 18TW.)
    Add more CO2 and it will still be the top 600 billion tons of it playing that game of catch, but being now higher and thus colder, playing it with a little less vigour and so shooting a little less out into space.

    (** The emission altitude isn't constant across the 15 micron wave band. The very centre of it, a narrow band on 15 microns, emits into space from way up in the stratosphere while the outer edges of the wave band still allow IR into space low down in the troposphere. These all move upwards with extra atmospheric CO2.)

     

  27. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    'You keep posing conspiracy theories about governments sabotaging nuclear.'

    Hardly conspiracy theories. Governors Brown in California and Cuomo in New York, Prime Minister Naoto Kan in Japan, and Presidents Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan and Moon Jae-in of South Korea, made no secret of their determination to close their respective nuclear industries. In Europe, Green parties have been demanding the energy portfolio in return for joining coalitions, and then closing reactors even when it means funding new gas plants or resurrecting coal.

  28. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    'The nuclear industry in France, the largest adoptor of nuclear, is collapsing because their reactors have reached the end of their life.'

    In fact it's the newest reactors that may have stress cracks in some of the emergency shutdown piping - the older ones are fine.

  29. How not to solve the climate change problem

    Scvblwxq1 @19 , thank you for the reference to the IPCC source ~ which I found on Page 8, A.3 (the 13% figure) and more on A.3.1.

    The 13% is for all agricultural CO2 nett emission (agricultural, forestry, and other land use activities.  Presumably this includes fossil fuel burn by harvesters & tractors & other field machinery ~ but this was not clearly stated, as far as seen by me.  And are logging trucks and sawmilling included? ).

    (Please note that for USA, the EPA states total greenhouse gas emissions by source as:  11% from agricultural sector;  13% from commercial/residential;  24% from industry;  25% from electricity generation;  27% from transport.    For the Third World countries, "agricultural" emissions would be higher in proportion to GNP but  lower in absolute amounts, owing to a mix of lower machinery yet higher deforestation [in South America and South-East Asia].

    While you are correct to wish to abolish deforestation, I am guessing that you do not wish to abolish all agriculture.

    And even so, it would be more logical for you to aim at abolishing that 75% plus, which constitutes the fossil fuel CO2 emission.  AGW by itself will contribute to deforestation & land degradation, over the coming century or two.

  30. How not to solve the climate change problem

    Paying to reduce deforestation may not cost too much. According to NBC news it only makes 8.2 billion a year. That should be affordable for the world if they really want to reduce CO2 emissions.

    Rainforest contribution to the economy

  31. CO2 effect is saturated

    I've done it again.  I'll move any other questions to https://skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm

  32. How not to solve the climate change problem

    Well I went to the source of the 20% figure the IPCC and they said that human land use accounts for 13 percent of human CO2 emissions and the natural response to human use caused 29 percent of total CO2 emissions.

    'Climate Change and Land'
    An IPCC Special Report on climate change, desertification,
    land degradation, sustainable land management, food security,
    and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems

     IPCC Special Report 2019

    This is in Summary for Polymakers>A.3

    page 7

  33. CO2 effect is saturated

    I looked up the preassure at the tropopause.  My bad assumption that that was the altitude of water.  The chart said .1 bar.  Pressure at sea is 1 bar.  Your chart shows 2km.  I agree.  I still have the question about how does CO2 in such small amounts, .04%, act as the control knob for the atmosphere when water is so completely overwhelming?  Is CO2 more populated above 2km? And I add at any altitude.  It doesn't hold the energy. It loses it to surrounding air very rapidly, if it happens to get hit with a photon.  Where is the emperical evidence or laboratory experiment that proves it has caused the increase in temperature?  I read your page at https://skepticalscience.com/CO2-trace-gas.htm.  No emperical evidence just a loose correlation and assumption that because temp went up 1.5F since 1880 and CO2 concentration went up that CO2 caused the increase in temperature.  Recent temperatures have been flat or falling since 2015 and CO2 concentration has continued to climb.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Confusion between air pressure and air density would be avoided by reading pretty much any introductory meteorology text.

    You ask how CO2 absorbing photons heats the atmosphere, while in the same breath saying that the energy is lost to the surroundings. Exactly. The energy gets added to surrounding molecules by collision, so the entire atmosphere at that location gets heated. In turn, a more heated atmosphere has more energy, and when energy is transferred to GHG molecules by collision with other molecules, the GHG molecules will sometimes emit that energy as radiation. Those are the fundamentals of radiative transfer in the atmosphere. Then, climate scientists add in all the other energy transfers involved (atmospheric motions, evaporation, condensation, etc.), and - gee golly - adding CO2 causes warming.

    You can read about this absorption process in detail over at Eli Rabett's blog.

    As for temperatures: you link to a site that says "It uses unadjusted surface temperatures." The site gives absolutely no indication on that main page how it handles spatial representation of individual stations, or how varying station numbers or locations affect the result over time. Adjustments are absolutely necessary to account for instrumentation, location, and sampling changes. THe source of data they use - METARS - is real-time weather observations, which have not gone through much QA/QC to weed out bad data. Without this information, it is impossible to know the validity of the analysis and methodology. Honest scientists publish the methodology they use.

    Recently, in response to another comment here, I posted a link to RealClimate's analysis of observed temperatures versus model predictions. They provide an image that includes four reputable global temperature analyses:

    realClimate model projections update 2021

     

    The only way you can get "no warming since 2015" is by cherry-picking a peak in the noise. By the same methodology, I could say "oh, my, look at how fast it has been warming since 2017!!!". The same "no warming..." claims were being made in the years after 1998 (a huge El Nino year) - until it became obvious that warming was continuing. Then when the post-2015 period came along, the fake skeptic industry appeared to do a search-and-replace, substituting 2015 for 1998. You don't do trend analysis on a noisy by cherry picking a peak (especially one from a known cause - no more than you would conclude that the tide is no longer rising because the water level on the beach isn't as high as it was at the crest of the last wave.

    Guess. what? We have a page on that, too.

    And we have a graphic and a name for the tactic: the Escalator. (It's down the right hand side of every page here.) You can read about how the graphic is constructed here.

     

     

  34. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    Thanks, I've been looking over the Sovacool paper.

  35. CO2 effect is saturated

    @MA Rodger 639

    Sorry for taking so long to get back. 

    You said "The essential mechanism is that the CO2 greenhouse effect operates higher up in the atmosphere, above the bulk of of the atmospheric water vapour. Thus it is CO2 which determines the altitude from which the IR in this band is emitted into space, thus the amount of this IR emitted into space (determined by the atmospheric temperature of the point of emission) and thus it is CO2 which determines the amount of greenhouse warming from this waveband."
    Could you explain what is the action of CO2 at those altitudes where the air is 1/10th the density and thus I guess there is a proportionate amount of CO2. With that little CO2 and the fact that it well might have lost a lot of energy by then, I don't understand how such a small amount of ~15um radiation is such a control factor for the whole atmosphere.

    Thanks

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You are again asserting things that make no sense.

    Have  you actually looked to see at what altitude the air density is 1/10th of the surface value? This is easy stuff to look up.

    Early Google hit: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-atmosphere-d_604.html

    Density is 1/10 of surface value at an altitude between 30 and 40 km. The same table tells you that this is well into the stratosphere, where temperature is now decreasing with height. This is not "the upper atmosphere" that MA Rodger is referring to. The troposphere, where nearly all water vapour is found, is the first 10-12 km. In fact, most of the water vapour is found in the first few km. You are off by an order of magnitude.

     

    You are also acting (again) as if 15um is the only wavelength of importance. It is not. And the upper atmosphere (troposphere) is not working in isolation. It is linked to the rest of the atmosphere. Scientists look at this in its entirety - not as isolated compartments of tidbits of information.

    You can use this link to MODTRAN to examine how different parameters and variables affect IR radiation transfer. You would be far better off using your time to experiment with that web site and try to answer your own questions.

    Until you learn how the atmosphere works as a system, you will continue to fail to understand these issues. I suggest that you get yourself an introductory climate and/or weather text book suitable for an undergraduate program, and read it.

     

  36. One Planet Only Forever at 04:41 AM on 30 August 2022
    A next-level water crisis: Colorado River Basin faces Tier 2 restrictions

    The failure of leadership of the 7 states to collaboratively agree to limits that would avoid harmful future regional consequences for seems to be a lot like the failure of national leaderships to collaboratively agree to limit climate change harm done to the future of global humanity.

    Regional leadership pursuing regional popularity and perceptions of prosperity, including perceptions of superiority relative to others, is a serious problem. It forces higher level leadership to intervene to try to limit the regional harmful unsustainable activity. And regional pursuers of popular support and perceptions of prosperity can be expected to try to blame external higher level 'leadership by others' for any regional perceptions of loss.

    Self interested pursuit of benefit is potentially one of the most harmful human characteristics. And its developed perceptions of success can make it harder to govern and limit the harm it does.

  37. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    The Sovacool et a larticle I cited in 296 was published in 2020 and not 2000.  The free copy link works.

  38. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    John ONeill @295,
    You defence of the analysis of Edgardo Sepulvda is poor to the point of hopelessness. My hypothetical wielding of Luxembourg to demonstrate the absurdity of the use of small and tiny countries in that Edgardo Sepulvda graphic you presented @292 is not well addressed by your bold assertion that "The countries Sepulveda examines are mostly reasonably large," which is eidently untrue. There are (according to Wikkithing) 32 countries where nuclear reactors are currently operational.

    The Edgardo Sepulvda graphic shows just twenty nuclear countries (here I list them with the No of current operational reactors in the order of their significance in the graphic) and most are certainly not "reasonably large," and most have less than half-a-dozen operational reactors which would suggest a 'lumpy' generation introduction, the phenomenon I demonstrated with the Luxembourg hypothesis.
    In order of significance given in the Edgardo Sepulvda:- Sweden 6, France 56, Finland 5, Belgium 7, Lithuania 0, Switzerland 4, Slovakia 4, Canada 19, Taiwan 3, S Korea 25, Germany 3, Bulgaria 2, Hungary 4, Czechia 6, USA 92, Japan 33, Spain 7, Slovenia 1, Ukraine, 15 UK 9.

    Perhaps to add further to the 'lumpy' problem that appears when an analysis addresses a global problem (AGW) by cutting-up the world into individual countries, Germany may be a powerhouse of the world economy but it is only 1.8% of global carbon emissions. In terms of countries, there are only two or three or four that are not small or tiny.
    National CO2 emissions 2017

    The selective nature of the data in the Edgardo Sepulvda graphic opens the door to possible cherry-picking, and that could extend to the choice of decadal capacity increases rather than some other period. Thus a choice of six years (the usual construction time for a nuclear reactor and so also the length of the 'look-ahead' analysis I presented @294 which you so-far ignore). And note that a six-year period analysis would reverse the placing of Germany Nuclear and Germany WInd.

    And as a final indicator of the Edgardo Sepulvda analysis being more problem than illustrative, the data given by OurWorldInData (the web engines for this linked @294) give markedly different values for those presented for Germany Nuclear and Germany WInd which gives a ratio of 122-to-100 while the graphic shows 132-to-100, a variation rather too big to ignore. (This was the one check I made, and it suggests other big errors.)

    So should we be surprised if others make similar forms of analysis and reach the opposite conclusion from you armed with that Edgardo Sepulvda graphic? Indeed this is the situation we see with the analysis michael sweet presents @296 (and do consider the 'look-ahead analysis I present @294).

  39. How not to solve the climate change problem

    Addendum -  I was in no way wishing to imply any disparagement of the great state of Texas.    ~A state which would be even greater if it had no school-shooters and no wheelchairs.  [pardon the 2022 political quip]

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] Portion of comment deleted. Let's not poke that bear here.

  40. How not to solve the climate change problem

    Scvblwxq1 , your assertions [not-quite-arguments] are going off all over the place ~ and are missing the target.  And missing the more appropriate threads, too.

    The 20% figure you mention is cherrypicked from the Environmental Defense Fund ~  other reports/studies point to figures like 8% and 10% . . . and even those are based on short-term periods, and do not look at the bigger picture.   Does it not occur to you that the Environmental Defense Fund has an advocacy role and might be doing its own cherrypicking?    You yourself should be taking a more skeptical view, and be examining evidence/data in a more thorough and nuanced manner.

    Your CO2 growth figures of 2ppm and 80ppm demonstrate your wildly inaccurate arithmetic, and your lack of understanding the basics.

    Your "migration" argument is unscientific.  What can we really conclude about rich elderly Noo Yorkers retiring to Florida?   Or some Wisconsinites & Michiganders moving south to the warmer Texas . . . while Mexicans & others are moving north to the cooler Texas    ;-)

    Sun energy and cloud feedbacks are issues again pointing to your needing to educate yourself about these basics.

    I suggest it would be logical for you to study the practicalities of reducing the 75% bulk of fossil-derived CO2.

  41. How not to solve the climate change problem

    I think the evironmental defense fund estimate of 20% of CO2 emissions was probably 20% of human-caused CO2 emissions. I think that makes more sense.

  42. IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change

    Michael Sweet and [BL]: I was not intending to re-start any discussion on this forum, and I will not respond here to any criticism. I am inviting your participation in a more neutral forum.

    The article on cost is new. I am doing my best to collect the most important facts on a controversial issue.  This forum seems to be the most technically informed on the anti-nuclear side, so I value your participation in the debate. From our earlier discussion, I as able to distill two critiques on the ThorCon article, one of which (Cs-137) has not been adequately answered by the ThorCon engineers.

    I am about to submit the earlier articles for final peer review, and I am intending to put an invitation on the other post where those articles were discussed. This post on climate change seemed like the better place to invite discussion on a more general topic. If you would rather I communicate privately, send and email to macquigg at gmail.  I value the work here on climate change, and I don't want to distract you with the nuclear issue.

  43. IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change

    Macquigg,

    Nuclear is on the tree of solutions, read more carefully.

  44. IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change

    This presentation seems to be ingoring nuclear power as a low-cost solution to our CO2 problem.  I understand there are worries about safety, waste management, weapons proliferation and cost. I have been designated editor for a series Nuclear Power Reconsidered in Citizendium to address those issues.

    There is a discussion of our latest article examining the cost issue at Renewable vs Nuclear Debate. If you having some good information to contribute, please join that discussion.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You have your run on about your other blog when you brought it  up on the "What role for small modular nuclear reactors in combating climate change?" post.

    Please do not re-start that same unproductive discussion.

  45. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...

    The Problem with this article is not only that you've done the same stirching job which was supremely questionable with the Mann Graphs to begin with, but even that aside, you have used alarmist graphs which double the amount of warming we've experienced vs the actual observations. If the stitching were done with a non-manipulated Temperature graph, then you find that the temperatures we have today are *Still no different than the range of temperatures that were experienced in the MWP.   

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] The problem with this comment is that it makes unsupported accusations of dishonesty, and throws in a few unsupported claims. All items that have been discussed elsewhere on this site:

    On Mann and the reviews of his work:

    https://skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm

    https://skepticalscience.com/CRU-tampered-temperature-data.htm

    https://skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm

    On the myth that observations show less warming that predictions:

    https://skepticalscience.com/Earth-expected-global-warming.htm

    https://skepticalscience.com/ipcc-global-warming-projections.htm

    https://skepticalscience.com/ipcc-overestimate-global-warming.htm

    ...also covered in a post over at RealClimate with more up-to-date observations:

    https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/01/update-day-2021/

    ...and lastly, the Medieval Warm Period

    https://skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm

    Unsupported assertions will gain you no credibility here.

     

  46. How not to solve the climate change problem

    The 20% figure for deforestation is from the Environmental Defense Fund.

    It looks to me like defostation is a major cause of CO2 increase. Deforestation has certainly increase over the years.

    CO2 growth has been around 2 ppm per year. The level is abot 400 ppm. The 20% figure is about 80 ppm. That is about 40 years of CO2 increase from deforestation alone. Deforestation in the Amazon dramatically increased around 1991 and has countinued to increase since then.

    It would take many decades and trillions of dollars to get rid of fossil fuels and it certainly hasn't warmed enough for most people to want to pay much extra for it. Buying up the rain forests would probably be much cheaper. Florida and Texas are still getting large immigration from people in the north seeking a warmer environment.

    The Sun is also emitting less energy and we don't know how much less  it will drop and when it will return to normal. The feedback effects will mean more clouds and rain as well as a cooler environment for an unknown amount of time. We may be needing fossil fuels more than ever.

    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You continue to treat this web site as if it this single post is the only place you want to comment.

    Please learn to use the Search tool. You have been pointed to other blog posts that look at deforestation. There are also several hits if you search for "Amazon", including

    https://skepticalscience.com/amazon-carbon-study-unnerving.html

    https://skepticalscience.com/statistic-of-decade-massive-amazon-deforestation.html

    Your claims about the cost of getting off fossil fuels also has better places:

    https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-too-hard.htm

    https://skepticalscience.com/too-expensive.htm

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

  47. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    John Oneill

    Sovacool et all 2000   (free copy linked here in the right column) reaches a different conclusion from your web page.   Was yours peer reviewed?  Sovacool et al find:

    "we use multiple regression analyses on global datasets of national carbon emissions and renewable and nuclear electricity production across 123 countries over 25 years to examine systematically patterns in how countries variously using nuclear power and renewables contrastingly show higher or lower carbon emissions. We find that larger-scale national nuclear attachments do not tend to associate with significantly lower carbon emissions while renewables do."

    I prefer peer-reviewed links.  I doubt that we will come to agreement on this point.

    Most of the nuclear improvements in your ten year list were made decades ago, with that remainder being single plants that took decades to build in small countries  Then people learned that nuclear was not economic and stopped building.  By contrast, all the wind and solar builds are recent.  Next year more wind and solar builds will be on the list and they will rise in the amounts of electricity generated.  You are comparing the best years of an old, failed technology to a new, rapidly expanding technology.  And you forgot solar.

    Renewable energy has only been the cheapest energy for a few years.  Nuclear has been around for 70 years.  More reactors shut down every year because they are worn out than are built.  Gas and wind have been built lately because they were cheapest.  Now, solar is also being built because it is cheap.  With the increase in the price of gas, all new build power will be renewable.

    The nuclear industry in France, the largest adoptor of nuclear, is collapsing because their reactors have reached the end of their life.  Your link from post 290 says future heat waves could cause 30% of France's nuclear to shut down during periods of highest need.  So much for "always on".  We see this already in 2022, except so many plants are closed for emergency repairs the shut downs from drought and heat are smaller.

    in post 289 you state that 60% of Frances nuclear is currently shut down during the worst electricity crisis in Europe.  Most are closed for emergency repairs with no restart date.  You keep posing conspiracy theories about governments sabotaging nuclear.

    You cite data from the 1980's to support nuclear.  Meanwhile the reactors built in the 80's are wearing out and shutting down.  Come back when you have recent data that supports nuclear.

    Nuclear is too expensive, takes too long to build and there is not enough uranium.

  48. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    The countries Sepulveda examines are mostly reasonably large. Those with more than 50% of their power from nuclear include France and Ukraine, large countries at opposite ends of Europe both geographically and in wealth. Germany and Japan, both economic giants, got almost 30% of their power from nuclear before the Fukushima meltdown led both to turn off most of their plants - unwisely, in my view. Making an unrealistic example of a small country is mostly a crime of the renewables enthusiasts. I've often seen lists online of places 'approaching 100% renewable', those including my own homeland, New Zealand. New Zealand has actually been receding from the '100% RE' ideal lately, as low hydro production led to record imports of coal. In fact, nearly all the places touted as nearing 100% RE are small, most rely largely on hydro, and many are quite poor, with low electricity use, and associated low rankings for general well-being. Brazil is an outlier, a large economy that used to get the great majority of its power from hydro, but climate change has been causing problems with that. There are a few countries which have reached around ten percent of their power from solar, but even by that level, intermittency, and usually, out of control incentive payments, are causing intractable problems. The two countries with a large share of power from wind are Denmark and Uruguay - both comparatively small, and both able to export their surpluses, and import to cover their deficits, from the much larger economies either side of them. (Uruguay also relies mainly on hydro, which can fill the wind gaps.) Your citing of Luxembourg is a bit rich - they used to have some of the most coal-heavy power in Europe, but still felt entitled to back Austria in taking legal action against other EU countries trying to decarbonise with nuclear. Conversely, Lithuania used to get over 90% of its electricity from two Soviet-era reactors, which it was forced to close to be allowed into the EU. Instead of exporting plenty of low-carbon power, the Lithuanians now import most of it - often from Sweden, which is roughly one third nuclear-powered, and which, like France till its recent problems, exports copious clean juice to all the countries around it.

    I just listened to an interesting podcast on grid economics, among other things. The Australian interviewee points out that leaving power planning to the market, as has been the fashion of late, is getting increasingly problematic - the Australian grid operator has a 'rule book' 1,700 pages ong, but the one for the PJM ( Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland) has 4,000 pages! The way the market rules are set tends to mean that just one type of generation is built in a period - nuclear in the early eighties, coal in Australia in the eighties, wind in Germany, gas and wind in the US lately. This was a reaction against the perceived socialism or dirigism of top-down control, but has led to a situation where nobody is really making long-term, coherent plans for the infrastructure that underpins our whole existence. Stephen Wilson: Adjunct Professor at University of Queensland

  49. Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    John ONeill @292,

    Really?

    Maybe I've missed something but it is quite easy to demonstrate that nuclear is not delivering.

    It is not a particularly clever analysis by this economist Edgardo Sepulvda. Cutting the world into tiny bits such that a small country with a nuclear power plant or two will suddenly have a big chunk of low carbon electricity capacity arriving in short order. Isn't that inevitable?

    Imagine. Shoe-horn a nuclear reactor into Luxembourg, press the on button and bingo - we have a winner!!

    A cleverer approach would surely be to take the global view of this. AGW is after all a global problem requiring a global fix.

    OurWorldInData shows the meatiest increase in nuclear generation occurred back in 1984 & 1985 when generation jumped by 221TWh/y & 234TWh/y respectively. This compares with the almost exponential rise in wind generation which jumped 265TWh/y in 2021. Or if longer periods are compared, both nuclear and wind  increased massively from under 100TWh/y, wind achieving 1,860TWh in the last 17 years, and nuclear 1,730TWh/y over a similar 17 year period. So the numbers are not dissimilar but the nuclear stuff was back over thirty years ago.

    Of course, we don't know for certain how tomorrow will shape out but the near-exponential growth in wind generation will presumably continue in coming years, so presumably easily exceeding a linear increase which would be 265TWh/y. Meanwhile for nuclear we know there is 0.058TW of new build expected to switch on in the next six years which. if it arrives on time to give say 90% load factor and none of the existing capacity shuts down, that would result in 76TWh/y increase in low carbon generation, a level well below 30% of the wind delivery.

    And that is why I say that, in comparison with wind, a sensible analysis shows nuclear not delivering. But then, have I missed something?

  50. One Planet Only Forever at 09:44 AM on 28 August 2022
    Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation

    JasonChen,

    Perhaps a clarification of the issue being discussed would help. Discourse is only possible when there is a common understanding of what is being discussed.

    The issue is the need to help people be less tempted to believe misunderstandings regarding climate science.

    There is undeniably a problem of successful efforts to selectively/misleadingly tempt people to want a product or service that they do not 'need'. There is even the hope that people will be so powerfully tempted that they will consider an 'unnecessary want' to be an 'essential need' which will keep them from investigating or recognising harm done. Those marketing efforts include deliberately failing to investigate and inform about, or misinforming about, harmful risks or results of the 'hoped to be popularly needed' product or service.

    'Does it work' is therefore regarding how effective the 'game' is at helping a person be less likely to be misled into misunderstanding climate science matters. The objective is to reduce the popular support for unnecessarily harmful human activity.

    So it is possible that your perception of the issue is 'a good distance', remote, from the common sense of what the issue is. The popularity of the 'game' is not the issue. Neither is the possibility that someone who is fond of misunderstanding climate science matters would feel 'manipulated' by the game.

    If you believe there is a better tool to help limit the popularity of harmful misunderstanding offer it up. It could be helpful beyond the challenge of the popularity of harmful misunderstandings regarding climate science. But it is common sense that it would be wise to use any such 'better' tool in addition to, not instead of, other helpful tools.

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