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Comments 3601 to 3650:
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David-acct at 11:36 AM on 24 August 2022Remote sensing helps in monitoring arctic vegetation for climate clues
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2606780/
interesting study on the tree lines in russian artic region during the holecene period.
this should provide some context and comparison with the common era past with respect to the current warming
The is some indication that the tree line is a better proxy for temp than proxies such as tree rings.
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David-acct at 11:19 AM on 24 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
Michael - Can you point to studies where the Clark critique has been discredited by any experts with real world experience. The only rebuttal I located was from Jacobson which was quite superficial. The critiques of Jacobson are based partly on the unrealistic assumptions for future storage capacity along with the failure to properly address the frequent drop in electric generation from renewables due to the variations of weather..
Again in my world, due diligence is imperative. In my world , we dont rely on what someone claims in a study just because they said it was true. We test against other known data. I provided the EIA website link which allows you review actual electric generation by source on a real time basis. I previously mentioned the Feb 2021 drought of wind and solar production which affected most of the north american continent for 7-9 days.
The EIA website for just the 8 months of 2022 shows drops in wind and solar generation in the USA
Feb 23 - march 3, 9 days average drop of electric generation from renewables approx 60-70%
May 3-7 4 days 50% -60% drop
June 1 - June 12 10-12 days, average drop of electric generation from renewables approx 60-70%
July 4th through August 22, approx 50 days where electric generation dropped by 2/3 with the exception of 8 days where the electric generation only dropped by 1/3.
Additionally, there were numerous other days that had significant drops in generation from wind and solar.
I saw nothing in Jacobson's analysis that addresses those frequent periods of 3-4 days or the 40-50 days drop in electric generation from wind/renewables in a realistic fashion.
comparing and contrasting the quality of the competing analysis, and comparing real time data (due diligence ), the clark et al critique has the better analysis of the feasibility.
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Eclectic at 10:31 AM on 24 August 2022How not to solve the climate change problem
Typo correction from @4 :
(last paragraph)
... a GSM typically will produce a global cooling of 0.5 degrees or less ...
!!!
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Eclectic at 10:20 AM on 24 August 2022How not to solve the climate change problem
Scvblwxq1 , may I offer a couple of points to save you time (and you may wish to check them against the record of published scientific papers & expert views).
A / The length of interglacials varies considerably. You are correct in saying that an interglacial length does average somewhere around 10,000 years. Yet the present Milankovitch cycle has an unusually low level of ellipticity ~ which likely results in a long interglacial . . . thought to extend for 20-30,000 years (as best as can be judged from prior effects of the Milankovitch cycles during the past million years). In other words, the deep glaciation will next occur in something around 15,000 years from now.
So there is no need to hurry to warm our planet. And it has been estimated that the current (420ppm) level of atmospheric CO2 has already exceeded the level required to make a major postponement in the next glaciation that you were worried about. A postponement of some tens of thousands of years. And so the present-day concern is the adverse effects of the current rapid global warming.
B / Will the proposed Grand Solar Minimum have a (beneficial) cooling effect on planetary temperatures? Evidently not ~ for a GSM typically will produce a global warming of 0.5 degrees or less : and that effect will be insufficient to counter our ongoing AGW of approx 0.18 degrees per decade. Sorry, but there is more warming ahead (even if Prof. Zharkova's very uncertain predictions of GSM turn out to be mostly correct).
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Bob Loblaw at 04:58 AM on 24 August 2022CO2 is coming from the ocean
Likeitwarm:
Glad to hear that you find the resource useful. Just remember: on the upper left of every page (just below the masthead banner) there is a search box and links to the most common climate myths. Always at your fingertips (or whatever you click your mouse or trackball with). Make it your friend.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:42 AM on 24 August 2022How not to solve the climate change problem
scvblwxq1:
That particular paper by Zharkova was previously mentioned in the weekly Skeptical Science New Research post back when it appeared in 2020. Quoting from that post:
The Taylor and Francis journal Temperature has squeezed in a paper by Valentina Zharkova claiming (yet again) upcoming global cooling, as an "editorial." Zharkova's work is a redo of a previous publication that was retracted due to a basic misunderstanding on the behavior of the barycenter of the solar system.
You can read about the previous paper in this thread at PubPeer:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/3418816F1BA55AFB7A2E6A44847C24#
and the retraction was noted at Retraction Watch. The blogger And Then There's Physics was involved in noting some of the many issues with the earlier paper, and wrote several blog posts on the subject:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2019/07/07/nature-scientific-reports/
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2019/07/25/retract/
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2020/01/13/zharkova-et-al-an-update/
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2020/03/04/zharkova-et-al-retracted/
Zharkova makes a habit of beating this drum, and the results are rarely worth reading. To coin a phrase, this is nothing new under the sun.
Moderator Response:[BL] Corrected third link to And Then There's Physics.
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scvblwxq1 at 04:13 AM on 24 August 2022How not to solve the climate change problem
I forgot to include the link to an article explaining the calculations and forecast.
'Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling
Valentina Zharkova'https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23328940.2020.1796243
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. -
scvblwxq1 at 04:02 AM on 24 August 2022How not to solve the climate change problem
The Sun has entered a Grand Solar Minimun that will last from 2020 to 2053 and will cool the Earth. Solar irradiance has already started declining. The worst will be from 2028 to 2032 when crop failurs due to cold wet weather are widespread. The cold will cause the oceans to absorb CO2 and it will get colder. We are still in the 2.588 million-year ice age called the Quaternary Glaciation. The interglacial period is usually aboout 10,000 years. It has been 11,700 since the last glacial period which suggests that with the cold another 90,000 year glacial period might be starting.
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Likeitwarm at 03:58 AM on 24 August 2022CO2 is coming from the ocean
@Bob Loblaw
I agree. I should have searched your site more thoroughly before making that post. Just trying to figure out who to believe. SKS seems to have a lot of supporting science.
On the topic, I see adding more CO2 to the atmosphere would also increase it in the ocean by whatever the ratio is.
Thanks for the education.
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Eclectic at 22:27 PM on 23 August 2022There's no tropospheric hot spot
MA Rodger @35 , many thanks for your self-sacrifice in undertaking a summarization of the Piers Corbyn effusions at that Reading Uni. site.
Hardened as I am by years of scanning through the denialist blogsite WUWT , nevertheless Corbyn gave me a leaden feeling after even a few paragraphs of his stuff. Further skimming did not give indications of any likely intellectual benefit ~ unlike with WUWT , where sometimes a spoonful of wheat can be found amongst the chaff.
Another denialist blogsite, Dr Judith Curry's ClimateEtc , can be crossed off the list of interesting denialist websites. It had always been a more genteel version of WUWT , in lacking WUWT's vitriol ~ but in recent months it has developed a dreariness, owing to the gradual disappearance of that small band of sane commenters who are capable of lifting the average. A month or so ago, there were a few comments by "Dikran Marsupial" (a worthy scientific commenter at SkS in earlier years) . . . but that has been the only point of light in the recent darkness.
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MA Rodger at 19:23 PM on 23 August 2022There's no tropospheric hot spot
Cedders @33,
And having had a read of that PDF...
Cedders @33,
Having examined the PDF (16 pages not 24), it is quite evident that it is a pile of utter nonsense, a "welcome to the lunatic asylum" message and not anything in any way scientifically-based.The author is Piers Corbyn, a well-kown denialist and an elder brother of Jeremy Corbyn (a long-serving left-wing Labour MP who bizarrely gained the heady position of Leader of the Labour Party for 4½ years).
Piers Corbyn is described in Wikithing as "an English weather forecaster, businessman, anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist" and does feature here at SkS being (1) Cited within a spot of denialism of 2015 in the Daily Express tabloid/comic, (2) The main source of a pile of climate nonsense of 2013 from the then Mayor of London Alexander Boris von Pfiffle Johnson, a man now renowned throughout the known world for not being particularly truthful, (3) Listed here at SkS as a denialsit with zero peer-reviewed writings.
The 16 page thesis linked up-thread @33 is a 2019 thesis presented to the Reading University Debating Journal and sitting at the top of a list of 24 such theses posted 2018-19, top of the list because it is the most recent (the journal lasted less than a year), a list which addresses such important topics as 'Why Self-Service Checkouts are the Invention of the Devil' and 'The Great University of Reading Catering Con: Man Shall Not Live off Sandwiches Alone' and an anonymous piece 'Why I Support the Conservatives: The Most Successful Party in British History'.
The Piers Corbyn thesis begins by citing David Legates' dismissal of the 97% AGW consensus before dismissing that because "it is about facts; and no Global-Warming Inquisition is going to prevent me exposing their nonsensical theories."
Corbyn then kicks off by asserting anthropogenic CO2 comprises 4% of atmospheric CO2 (thus confusing FF carbon with naturally-cycled carbon) and that CO2 is not the main controller of global temperature (here presenting a graphic which confuses the US temperature with global temperature - shown below in this comment).
A further assertion is then presented, that CO2 is the result of warming oceans with six references/notes provided in support which seem to all point back to crazy denialist Murry Salby.
So, a la Salby, the present rise in CO2 is claimed to result from the good old Medieval Warm Period. A graphic is presented comparing a denialist 1,000y temperature record (based on the schematic FAR Fig 7c) with the much-confirmed scientifically-based Hockey Stick graph.
This brings us to the halfway page of Corbyn's denialist rant.The thesis continues with pageful of misunderstanding of how the GH-effect works, ending with accusations that this misunderstood 'theory' breaks the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (or it does if you misinterpret the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics).
Happily, this misunderstanding is considered to be not supported by "better scientists" who consider the lapse rate. And this indeed is a 'better' consideration. But here Corbyn perhaps confuses the tropical 'hot spot' (which is caused by increased tropical rainfall transporting more latent up into the troposphere) with some CO2 effect. (The 'hot spot' results from a warmer tropics and not per se any enhanced GH-effect.) And he fails to address the reasons why there is difficulty detecting this tropical 'hot spot'. Indeed he brands it as a 'coldspot' that he seems to say is caused by "more CO2 & other GHGs" which cause a diurnal fluctuation in the IR "heat-exit height" to become greater and, due to the 4th-power in the SB equation, this causes cooling. Whether such a phenomenon extends beyond the tropics (thus globally more-than negating the 'hot spot') is not properly explained but, due to the lapse rate this phenomenon can apparently also negate "the original expected surface warming."A first graphic box is presented with three unsubstantiated bullet points explaining "Why CO2 theory does not work" alongside two similar "apart from"s.
A second graphic box also titled "Why CO2 theory does not work" states:-In the real atmosphere there are day/night temperature fluctuations (eg in upper atmosphere). They are larger with more CO₂ because CO₂ (infra red absorber / emitter) gains & loses heat easier than N₂ & O₂ and so enables all the air to adjust quicker.
This is a fundamentally different explanation from the previous fluctuation in IR "heat-exit height" explanation described earlier, and it is still wrong.
(A packet of air with X concentrations of CO2 will both emit and absorb an IR photons of quantity P. With absorb=emit, it is thus in equilibrium. Add CO2 so the concentration is doubled to 2X, and the emitting photons will double to 2P and the absorbed photons will also double to 2P so absorb=emit and the same equilibrium is maintained. The main result is that twice the level if IR emission has half the pathlength before absorption so at any point the IR flux remains unchanged. And CO2 does not "gain & lose heat easier than N₂ & O₂" when it remains thermally coupled to the N₂ & O₂. )
The remainder of this second graphic box on PDF page 9 is a little too confused to rebut with any confidence. A diurnal range of "about 5 or 6 deg" is given which is apparently a temperature range yet whatever “deg” means (presumably Kelvin), the bulk of the troposphere has a far smaller diurnal range than even 5ºF. The mechanism for the enhanced cooling from the "heat-exit height" is presented as due to a fluctuating temperature losing more heat (by radiating IR) than a constant temperature (which is true). A rather dodgy-looking equation is followed by the note "Detail subject under research" but no reference is given and three-years-on there is no sign of such "research."
And a third graphic box is shown on the next page also titled "Why CO2 theory does not work," this third such graphic mainly presenting a pair of images from Australian denialist David M. W. Evans who has his own SkS page of climate misinformation.
The thesis then turns to the proposition that it is not CO2 but solar forces that "rules climate temperature" with the dotted line on the graphic below described as such a ruling influence. It apparently shows how the "9.3yr lunar-nodal crossing & the full 22yr solar magnetic cycle" allegedly shift the jet stream and "many circulation patterns." The graphic's 60-yr periodicity is less than convincing,being fitted to US rather than global temperature which, when extended beyond the 1895-2008 period shows itself to be simple curve-fitting (eg the Berkeley Earth US temperature record 1820-2020 does not show it, even to a blind man). The graphic was presented by Corbyn at the Heartland Institute's 2009 conflab in NY in which Corbyn [audio] insists other findings demonstrate “something is going on” but why it is this graphic being reused in this 2019 thesis is not clear – perhaps the forecast of world temperature dropping to 1970s levels by 2030 is too evident on other slides he used in that Heartland presentation.
To support his thesis Corbyn mentions an alleged cover-up by the likes of the BBC in reporting only global warming when the 'true' data shows cooling, the reported support for all this Piers Corbyn craziness from oil companies who shy away only because they want to use AGW to "make higher profits" and how these AGW-inspired mitigation agendas are already directly responsible for needlessly killing "millions" annually.
The thesis ends with a challenge:-It is for this reason that I, Piers Corbyn, challenge whoever is willing in Reading University or other appropriate institutions to a debate on the failed Global warming scam vs evidence-based science.
So I interpret the thesis as a "welcome to the lunatic asylum" message from Piers Corbyn.
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nigelj at 10:43 AM on 23 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
I believe renewables can work. Break the issue down to the absolute basics. Renewables are intermittent sources of energy but this can be solved by storage and / or overbuild. There can be no real debate about this because its basic engineering and physics. Therefore its all about practicality and costs (and practicality comes down to costs anyway). I'm ignoring smart grids for the sake of simplicity.
Studies I've seen suggest renewables can easily be cost effective at 80% grid penetration, and should be cost effective at 100% grid penetration. Either option is great for the climate although 100% penetration is obviously best.
I don't have time to search out links analysing costs. I just wanted to make the point that 1) to understand the issue and have the correct starting point for discussion, first break the issue down to something that can't be realistically disputed or reduced further. Although the denialists will try I suppose and 2) we don't have to have a 100% penetration of renewables to make a difference although 100% penetration is desirable. There are many storage options including battery farms, pumped hydro, electrofuels, etc, etc.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:19 AM on 23 August 2022CO2 is coming from the ocean
The link to the OA not OK part 9 that OPOF mentions is this:
https://skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_9.html
You can find links to each part of the entire series on that page, and you can also download a booklet containing the entire story.
https://skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_part_21.html
LIkeitwarm: You seriously need to stop believing some of the claptrap you are reading. Posting these one-liners is just running through the list of Most Common Climate Myths. Please try to come up with something that has not been debunked many times over.
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One Planet Only Forever at 10:04 AM on 23 August 2022CO2 is coming from the ocean
Likeitwarm @15,
Maybe the SkS post "OA not OK Part 9: Henry the 8th I was (*)" would help unpuzzle you.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:54 AM on 23 August 2022CO2 is coming from the ocean
Likeitwarm @15,
"Who ever he was/is" also applies to the question of the merit of 'climate science' comments made by a blogger named Bud Bromley who has a strange range of blog topics.
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Likeitwarm at 09:24 AM on 23 August 2022CO2 is coming from the ocean
According to Bud Bromley, Henry's Law (who ever he was) governs how much CO2 is in the oceans and atmosphere and nothing humans do will change that. Explains in his blog post. So, I'm puzzled, now.
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michael sweet at 08:42 AM on 23 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
David-acct:
It is discouraging when someone says "I completely agree with you that everyone should read the literature to become fully informed" and then cites an old, discredited paper like Clack et al 2017 (typo in citation in post 6 above). Clack's primary complaint was how hydropower was handled. Jacobson 2017 shows that issue does not affect the result. All Clacks' 2017 issues have been solved.
Since 2015 Jacobson has updated his work about every two years. Renewable energy has gone down in price much more than expected so now renewable energy not only can deliver all energy, it is much, much cheaper than fossil fuels. Jacobson et al 2022 is state of the art. A lot has changed since 2015. Try to stay current. As I mentioned above, Jacobson now uses batteries as a major energy storage system.
Breyer et al 2022 reviews the history and current status of scientific thought on All Energy Renewable Energy Systems. There are multiple solutions to the issue of intermittent wind. Jacobson does not use any combustion, he believes the pollution from burning is not worth it. Other solutions are cheaper. Even with no combustion, renewable energy is much cheaper and more dependable than fossil fuels. (Think low gas supplies currently in Europe and recently in Texas).
Scientists have shown that large renewable grids are much cheaper than small grids like EPCOT. I do not care if wind was low in a small area like ERCOT. I note that consumers in Texas have been charged several billion dollars extra in the last decade because the grid in Texas is set up to fleece consumers.
Jacobson models the entire world in 30 second intervals using 3 years of weather data. He counts the entire contenental USA as one grid. Renewables provide all energy more reliably than the current grid. Texas will have to upgrade to be with the rest of the USA. If the wind in Texas in Feb 2021 was an issue Clack would have published on it by now. The fact that he hasn't tells me it is not an issue.
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Doug Bostrom at 01:42 AM on 23 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
To save folks a little time, here are the earlier papers David mentions:
Jacobson et al. 2015: Low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes
Clark et al. 2017: Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar
Jacobson et al. reply in detail to Clark et al.: The United States can keep the grid stable at low cost with 100% clean, renewable energy in all sectors despite inaccurate claims
Moderator Response:[BL] Third link corrected (I hope)
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MA Rodger at 01:01 AM on 23 August 2022There's no tropospheric hot spot
Cedders @33,
On boosting search rankings, the promotion from page 1,000 up to page 900 because a URL is used a single timesomewhere on the inerweb in my view is not very significant. If you want to give your webpage a proper boost, you'd use other means. But saying that, I do get criticised occasionally for using denialist URLs and thus boosting their rankings (and I am no expert in the matter). You can apparently make such a use without any boost whatever using the 'nofollow' extention in the HTML of a URL (but I'm not sure how you'd use that in the SkS URL inserter).On the URL content, I haven't looked down that URL yet. And it is useful to take the whole argument thus presented (so I 'look forward' to all 24 pages of it) as one approach to dismissing a difficult bit of debunking is to point to all the obvious nonsense argued alongside the difficult debunking. This is of course an ad homenem logical argument but without the difficulty being resolved (one way or the other) it is not in any way a logical fallacy.
On atmospheric cooling from CO2, the equilibrium in the energy balance will be restored following a CO2 forcing. This would result in the troposphere warming by +1ºC per 2xCO2 increase (without feedbacks) which will act over the whole blackbody emissions spectrum of 7.5 to 100 microns, this balancing the +3.7Wm^-2 forcing from the CO2.
When it comes to the CO2 forcing itself, CO2 emissions only acts over a small part of the global emissions spectrum. See fig 5b3 of that useful paper Zhong & Haig (2013) 'The greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide' which shows the spectrum of a CO2 increase 389ppm to 878ppm (2xCO2 from 2013) and how the central micron of the emissions are already past the tropopause and thus cooling the planet rather than warming it. Thus the 3.7Wm^-2 CO2 forcing comes from a rather narrow part of the spectrum 13¼ micron to 16¾ micron (less that central 14½ to 15½ now operating to cool the planet). To make this narrow band have such a big effect, it has to result from a cooling of the emissions altitude, a cooling far bigger than the average that would be required over the full blackbody spectrum. So that emissions altitude increases on average enough to perhaps give you 10ºC drop in temperature.
Do note that the CO2 emissions will be reaching space from vastly different altitudes. The central part of the emissions are up in the stratosphere while the edges of the emissions will be low down in the troposphere. The bits inbetween the edge and the centre will thus stretch all the way up. So this effect will apply to the whole troposphere.
So the emissions altitudes post forcing will rise and thus become cooler by a far bigger amount than the compensating warming of the troposphere to reach post-forcing equilibrium. And that cooling will drop the emissions into space. So any diural temperature variation due to loss of daytime solar warming will be less due to this cooling/drop of IR emissions.
On the significance of this cooling. Meanwhile, because the emissions altitude is higher, there will be a drop in the pressure of the emissions altitude although only for the O2 & N2. The extra CO2 will presumably mean CO2 will be effectively constant. And this drop in pressure will mean a drop in the air's Specific Heat Capacity. (The temperature effect on SHC will be pretty flat.) And this drop in SHC will mean that for a constant loss of energy through the night, any diurnal cooling will be larger. This then operates in the opposite direction to the reduction in IR caused by the cooler emissions altitudes which will lower the energy loss and thus reduce the diurnal range.
And so the question is which effect is the larger? Indeed, are they of a significantly similar size? And given that, is the effect significant for the diurnal temperature range?
Given the proposal comes from this denialist URL, that is perhaps the first place to look for answers. So I will be looking at those 24 pages (although prior to that my own very cursory work on the first two of those questions suggests the pressure/SHC is the larger effect with a ration of 3:1).
I hope all that makes sense.
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Wol at 18:53 PM on 22 August 2022Halfway point in this year's run of Denial101x - 6 more months to go!
The denialist technique that really IS impossible to attack is the Gish gallop. There's no answer to that - as one is given the subject is changed and so on ad infinitum until you give up and the denialist claims victory.
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David-acct at 11:59 AM on 22 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
Michael Sweet
I completely agree with you that everyone should read the literature to become fully informed.
I my world, with acquisitions and product purchases and other testing we perform due dilegence - a variation of "peer review" with the primary difference is that real money is involved so we strive to get it right. Not that in academia, there are negative consequences are not as bad if you get in wrong.
one of the reasons I provided the link to EIA was because it is an excellent unbaised source for electric generation by source on a real time basis for all the grids in the US.
That being said, I reviewed Jacobsons paper from oct 2021, along with his paper from 2015. I also read the critique of jacobson's work published in june2017 by pnas. His updates are basically minor modifications to his 2015 study/analysis. All his papers are quite dismissive of the hurdles associated with storage and the frequent doldrums associated with renewables.
When comparing and contrasting his analysis of how to deal with the intermitiancy of wind, he glosses over any hurdles. None of his proposals come close to addressing engineering hurdles such as the the event of Feb 2021 in a coherent / reality based manner. I refer back to the EIA which shows the combined electric generation from wind and solar in ercot grid was down 60-90% for 8-9 days , the SWpp grid lost 70% for 6 days. the MIso grid lost 50-90% for 14 days. the MICO grid was also near collapse that the Ercot grid experience.
I have re inserted the link to the EIA . gov website so that other readers of this website can review the SOURCE data.
You can select the time period and grid using the star wheel link in the upper right corner
again I appreciate your comments - especially to become informed - especially to become fully informed and to perform the necessary due diligence to reach an independent unbiased conclusion
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Cedders at 07:42 AM on 21 August 2022There's no tropospheric hot spot
Thanks to you both for trawling through this. I was wary that linking to the document might boost its search engine ranking, but here it is via archive.org (16 of the 24 pages in the printed version). It doesn't have the professional gloss of a Heartland publication, but any documentation with one or two specious arguments helps some members of the public justify their preferred position.
Both papers look useful in understanding important features of atmospheric physics before thinking about how greenhouse forcings affect them. I'm not sure why search engines didn't find them for me; or maybe I was looking specifically for greenhouse effects. I find Seidel et al the easier of the two to read and providing the simplest rebuttal: there really isn't much diurnal temperature variation to influence OLR in any case. Gristey et al confirms 'diurnal temperature range becomes negligible at around 100 m altitude' (above surface), suggesting it's surface temperature that is most important in their Sahara example, followed by clouds and convection.
Gristey et al also suggests to me that the effect of increases in LLGHGs and specific humidity will reduce transmittance, so also reducing OLR coupling to surface 'hotspots' and further reducing what small diurnal range there is at, say, the tropopause. I am a bit confused why the OLR varies proportionately more over the day than the temperature at 500 hPa (Seidel fig 3), but suppose the atmospheric window (IR emitted from the surface that never interacts with atmosphere) is important.
On the logic of rising emission layers: 'Being thinner (less O2 & N2 but same CO2), it would presumably have a lower specific heat capacity, so for the same IR flux it would cool quicker,' - well put, that is where I thought there might be some merit in the new argument - 'but being at a higher/colder altitude it would be shooting off less cooling IR.' I wasn't convinced by that caveat, because shouldn't the OLR/cooling IR at the TOA remain what you expect at 255 K? So 'upper atmosphere adjusting quicker' might have a grain of truth in it, but adjusting to what (space mostly?), and doesn't it imply regressing to diurnal mean more quickly? In any case, there's no empirical support for increased diurnal range.'And in the literature I haven't heard of any consideration of the diurnal range up in the upper troposphere beyond cloud formation which suggests if there is some effect, it is all rather obscure.'
Very obscure, but that doesn't mean it doesn't serve the contrarian's purpose. I probably would never have thought about the 'hotspot' itself, not being prone to expeditions in high-altitude balloons or worried about that part of the atmosphere, were it not for various contrarians using the very lack of empirical data to argue for a flaw in established theory. These arguments are about fine details, emphasising them as if they were important, to distract from a central point that someone wants to avoid.
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Doug Bostrom at 18:58 PM on 20 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
Further to Michael's comment, calling attention to an article highlighted in this very edition:
Hybrid Power Plants. Status of Operating and Proposed Plants, 2022 Edition, Bolinger et al, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Nonrenewables axiomatically have their own hard limitation and unreliability beyond intermittency: they're not permanent. When whatever it is that we're rearranging to extract energy is exhausted, that's it— that system is kaput for good.
If we're OK with a very brief phase of civilization as we'd like it, non-renewable (temporary) fuel is not a problem. If we'd prefer to be in the long game, we'll inevitably be running on 100% renewables.
Succinctly: resistance to renewable energy is not so distant from wishing for or even believing in perpetual motion.
Meanwhile, for the case of fossil hydrocarbons, the more we burn now the sooner the date at which we have to begin building HC molecules for all the other requirements they fulfill. And (no surprise) doing that requires a lot of energy. The more FF we burn now, the bigger our burden later. The sooner we choke off this error, the better. Calling building materials "fuel" is a bit stupid, after all.
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MA Rodger at 01:28 AM on 20 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
JasonChen @18,
If it is a "demonstrable fact that certain factions within society are eager to see a Great Reset and enthusiastic about the climate agenda and the broadest, most disruptive approaches to emissions reduction," you do need to show it is a "demonstrable fact." Such a 'demonstration' requires a lot more than naming Musk, XR, BLM & AOC as exemplars of folk wanting "political change" and then baselessly assert they welcome the opportunity AGW presents. And to further assert that such folk have influence over the work of the IPCC and beyond into the science of climatology which is, you assert, being used to falsify that science, such assertion requires a lot more than you simply pronouncing on the level of this alleged influence "I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't assume the answer is zero." You do need to show in full detail the "IPCC assessment reports that subsume scientific findings and disputes under an advocacy narrative."
And if you can't do that, you need to go away and rethink your message which presently is reading like the message you'd hear buried in a DJT speech.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:27 AM on 20 August 2022Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Oh, darn. The moderator has pointed Likeitwarm to a place where the answers to my homework assignment can be found.
The infinite series I had in mind is:
1 + x + x*x + x*x*x....
or
1+ x + x2 + x3 ...
where x is the additional single-step feedback temperature rise added to the initial 1 degree rise. At each subsequent step, x acts on the extra rise from the previous step, hence the x2, x3 terms.
Brilliant mathematicians have managed to find a closed form (finite) solution to that infinite sum, for x less than 1.
sum = 1/(1-x)
As long as x < 1, there is an eventual stable sum. If x = 1, the denominator becomes zero and the sum becomes infinite. If x>1 the sum at each step represents an exponential increase.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:14 AM on 20 August 2022There's no tropospheric hot spot
MA Rodger beat me to it. My quick Google search produced the same two papers that he has linked to and discussed.
The term "upper atmosphere" is vague. In the stratosphere, temperature increases with altitude, and increasing CO2 is expected to cause cooling, not warming. . In the upper troposphere, diurnal temperature range is small, and warming due to CO2 is also small.
The Seidel et al paper that MAR references says that upper troposphere diurnal range is <1K.
The Gristey et al paper indicates that factors such as cloud variations, humidity variations, and convective dynamics are dominant.
And I agree that the selected quote is largely incoherent. As for the author being related to a UK politician - that points to some obvious candidates with long records of obfuscation and poor science.
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MA Rodger at 00:52 AM on 20 August 2022There's no tropospheric hot spot
Cedders @30,
You don't provide a link to the PDF of this pamphlet, assuming it is on-line somewhere. Given the quotes you provide, the pamphlet does appear to be verging on the incoherent, so the actual argument presented may not make a lot of sense and may easily be entirely unfounded.Indeed, I would guess that any talk of a CO2 IR mechanism is nonsense. Certainly I do not see any mention in the literature (eg Gristey et al (2018) 'Insights into the diurnal cycle of global Earth outgoing radiation using a numerical weather prediction model')
Considering the logic of it, the addition of CO2 to the "real atmosphere" does mean there are more photons flying about in the 15 micron waveband, but because there is more CO2, their 'flightpath' is commensurately shorter as there is more absorbing CO2 as well as more emitting CO2. O2 & N2 simply do not emit/absorb any IR themselves but do transfer energy to/from CO2 through collision which is a temperature thing.
The altitude where IR is shooting off to space will have the same volumetric concentration of CO2 and this altitude will rise upward as CO2 is added. Being thinner (less O2 & N2 but same CO2), it would presumably have a lower specific heat capacity, so for the same IR flux it would cool quicker, but being at a higher/colder altitude it would be shooting off less cooling IR. So I don't imagine a simple process worked out on the back of a denialist's fag packet.
And in the literature I haven't heard of any consideration of the diurnal range up in the upper troposphere beyond cloud formation which suggests if there is some effect, it is all rather obscure.And as you say, the surface diurnal temperature range reduces with an increasing greenhouse effect. The diurnal range is much smaller through most of the troposphere (see Seidel et al (2005) 'Diurnal cycle of upper-air temperature estimated from radiosondes') but the same principle (of increased insulation reducing nighttime cooling & thus the diurnal range at altitude) presumably still carries.
So without sight of that PDF, this effect would likely be very small if it does exist, and given the rarified atmosphere up there in the upper troposphere, don't hold your breath. -
JasonChen at 00:47 AM on 20 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
I understand it's a polarizing, politicized issue, and conspiracy theory is a label that's easy to apply and minimizes cognitive dissonance. But that does injustice to the important scientific discipline of hypothesis generation, in which we come up with other potential causes for whatever evidence we observe and hold space for them. Without the commitment to any particular narrative or the paranoia implied by conspiracy theory.
It's demonstrable fact that certain factions within society are eager to see a Great Reset and enthusiastic about the climate agenda and the broadest, most disruptive approaches to emissions reduction. Industrialists like Mr. Musk have already made billions and expect to make many more in the green revolution. Extinction Rebellion and BLM and other Marxist groups are eager to see capitalism torn down, industrialization rolled back, and people suffering enough to support a communist revolution. Politicians like AOC are leveraging climate to propel their careers and justify sweeping political change. For these groups, climate change is not an inconvenient truth at all, it's just the opposite.
To what extent does the IPCC we see today, its output, the choices of which climate research gets funded and which papers get published reflect the influence of such factions rather than pure science? I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't assume the answer is zero.
What might we expect to see if such groups had significant influence, either at the formation of the IPCC or since? An IPCC charter that isn't strictly scientific but reaches into politics, a remit that isn't narrowly focused on some specific goals but one that's broad and vague. We might see IPCC assessment reports that subsume scientific findings and disputes under an advocacy narrative. Rather than push for narrow, achievable climate interventions like "build 1000 nuclear plants," it might instead go broad and endorse every conceivable intervention that might affect emissions, with vague nostrums like "climate justice" sprinkled in to curry political support.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:46 AM on 20 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
Nick Palmer @14,
I also got a kick out of the 'science the shit out of it' moment. It fit in the context of the movie and at that moment. Alluding to what he had to do with his excrement was very good.
In this presentation's context I see a connection to the 'hot as hell' consequences of less aggressive corrective actions. But the term seems out of place in the context of a presentation intended to 'appeal to everyone who might be inclined to want to better understand this issue'. Other terms that convey a required 'urgent emergency response' may be better.
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michael sweet at 23:49 PM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
David-acct:
Fortunately for renewables, from late morning until early evening every day the sun was shining to cover the electricity need. The sun shines every day!
Jacobson et al 2022 shows that an all renewable system covers all energy, all day, every day and is so much cheaper than fossil fuels that it pays for itself in only 6 years. In addition,, the health benefits from less pollution are immense. Most of the storage is batteries.
Read the literature to get informed. When you raise objections that were answered ten years ago it simply wastes time.
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Cedders at 21:46 PM on 19 August 2022There's no tropospheric hot spot
Hello again. I hope this is a reasonable place to post a potential new myth or misunderstanding related to the upper atmosphere, which I read in a pamphlet by a noted contrarian (brother of a UK politician; a PDF is online and an earlier version found on a Reading University student debating blog). The confusing tract is almost entirely myths already covered on SkS, confusions of carbon stocks and flows, graphs of Antarctic CO₂ lag, faulty logic of causation, a proposal that increases in atmospheric CO₂ are a reaction to the MWP and coming from the oceans, and an incomprehensible suggestion that back radiation doesn't conserve energy. Then it mentions lapse rate and emission layer displacement but that 'this model also says that with more CO₂ the upper atmosphere at a certain level will get warmer ... the hotspot turned out to be a coldspot!'
Now it's not clear how the auithor made that connection; maybe it was the both emission layer displacement and 'hotspot' involve temperature lapse rate. I understand, as explained on the intermediate page here, that the negative lapse rate feedback is due to increased evaporation and latent heat transport from warming oceans, not directly related to CO₂. The pamphlet then ventures three reasons for the alleged inconsistency of model with experiment, never mind that it's actually consistent: these include changes in lapse rate curve (actually the basis of the hotspot), that 'transpiration cooling by plants... increases with CO₂' (the reverse is true, surely?), and then something that I can't verify one way or the other:
In the real atmosphere there are day/night temperature fluctuations (eg in upper atmosphere). They are larger with more CO₂ because CO₂ (infra red absorber / emitter) gains & looses [sic] heat easier than N₂ & O₂ and so enables all the air to adjust quicker.
So translating into my terminology, the idea is that diurnal temperature range at the top of atmosphere increases with CO₂ and contributes to temperature heterogeneity, total outgoing flux and negative Planck feedback. As GHG concentration increases, the effective top of atmosphere rises to less dense air, correct? (Which means daytime air might lose a similar amount of energy initially, but cool faster but then need mixing from lower layers to continue the same radiative flux to space. Or something.) So could it be a valid interpretation? My reponse would be that any such effect is covered in GCM models, but it would be quite difficult to pull it out and quantify it as a separate effect. It seems it might be a small negative feedback on the first-order effect, but is the logic of the speculation sound? Diurnal temperature variation at the surface will decrease with CO₂: will it decrease or increase or stay the same at height? Thanks for any references or insight.
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Jan at 21:44 PM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
Its very simple: 100% renewables as fast as we are able to or we die out!
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Nick Palmer at 20:30 PM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
#10 OPOF
Re: "we need to deply the hell out of clean tech and options that are available today"
Actually, I really liked it. I suspect it is a clever reference to Matt Damon's 'The Martian' in which an astronaut is seemingly pemanently stranded on Mars with impossible odds. Probably the most famous lines of the movie - they're even in the trailer - are:
"...in the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option:
I’m going to have to science the shit out of this"
Click for Youtube clip -
Nick Palmer at 19:58 PM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
Re#5
Moderator - Yes, I must have submitted it twice, probably when using the back button and seeing the comment apparently unsubmitted... -
David-acct at 13:04 PM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #33 2022
US Energy generation by source provided by the US Energy Information Administration is one of the best sources to understand the practical limitations of renewables.
A few things to note for the period July 1 2022 through Aug 15th which covered most of the US heat wave of the summer of 2022. Electric generation from wind was at the low point most every day for that 45 day period from late morning until evening with few exceptions.
The nice thing about the interactive chart is that you can select any grid in the US and select any time period, ( see the star wheel in the upper right of the chart which provides the options to change grids and time periods). Using that feature allows the individual to see any time period. That being said, one of the other data to see the the frequency of 2-3 day periods when electric generation from wind is in the doldrums.
So, even though the LCOE is considered to be low for wind, LCOE becomes meaningless with the wind doesnt produce or when it produces more than the grid can handle (
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nigelj at 11:30 AM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
Jason Chen @12
"What's not that list is physics goals of fixing the climate or even predicting it well. 30 years later, the climate is neither fixed nor on a path to be fixed. Fixed hasn't even been defined. The IPCC hasn't identified anything close to a seat belt. The response strategies it has formulated have a conspicuous overlap with Klaus Schwab's agenda for maximal disruption. Large chunks of the world are rejecting them as economically and politically unpalatable. These are just facts."
Your stream of mostly nonsensical, wrong, evidence free, citation free assertions is getting tiresome. I wish you would take your trolling somewhere else. You also have a habit of confusing various things.
For the benefit of sane people:
"What's not that list is physics goals of fixing the climate"
Fixing the climate is not a physics goal. Physics is about understanding the climate. Mitigation is about fixing the climate.
And The IPCCs stated goals of assessing the relevant scientific information obvious directly imply the requirement to understand the physics.And their stated goal of formulating response strategies is clearly about "fixing the climate".
"or even predicting it well"
IPPC does not predict the climate. It reviews predictions made in various modelling exercises and the predictions have been quite good:
"the climate is neither fixed nor on a path to be fixed."
The fact that the climate problem has not been fixed is nothing to do with the IPCC or some undefined nebulous global elite. Neither are tasked with fixing the climate problem. Its because governments have weak policies, corporates have been slow to respond, and individuals have been complacent.
"Fixed hasn't even been defined. "
Fixed has been defined: Net zero by 2050 under the Paris Accord Agreements. You may disagree with the definition, but stop telling people there is no definition.
"The IPCC hasn't identified anything close to a seat belt."
The IPCC have defined the science very well. Their latest report runs to about 10,000 pages and references many thousands of peer reviewed studies. The science goes back over 100 years. This website discusses this issue if you go through their menu system to find relevant information.
"Klaus Swabs agenda".
Jason you better put on your tin foil hat.
"Large chunks of the world are rejecting them as economically and politically unpalatable. These are just facts."
Large chunks of the world are rejecting climate mitigation strategies for a range of reasons. For some its because they don't want to pay any costs, but there are many other reasons including vested interests, holding on to establiashed patterns of a materialistic displays of status, campaigns of climate science denialism and for various psychological reasons. But equally large chunks of people want mitigation strategies implimented, if you read polling studies by Pew Research.
Those are the real facts, with some relevant sources noted..
Moderator Response:[PS] Not a constructive contribution.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:45 AM on 19 August 2022Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Likeitwarm:
You like asking questions that you think are "gotcha's", don't you?
Tell you what: what you are describing is an infinite series. Put the infinite series into a mathematical form, including a variable that tells you how much H2O increases by for a given temperature increase, and then how much that temperature increase will increase H2O, and see how it behaves?
You will probably find that not all infinite series lead to infinite increases. Some of them have finite limits and asymptotically approach a limiting value (as long as the appropriate mutiplliers fall within certain limits).
When you have your mathematical expression of the problem you are asking about, get back to us.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:27 AM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
Regarding my comment @11,
There is growing understanding that 'being less of a consumer' can reduce impacts more than 'being more attentive to choosing lower impact options'.
'Reduced Consumption' can be really helpful. Energy use, and waste, is associated with almost any consumption. And there can be many other impacts from consumption, including non-climate change impacts of energy use, that are cumulatively more harmful as each person's consumption impacts add up. Tragically, every little bit of harm done adds up.
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JasonChen at 09:24 AM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
I hereby declare my point of view a seat belt, yours a platypus. Out of my devotion to science, you understand.
Moderator Response:[PS] Not a constructive contribution to the discussion.
This discussion is getting borderline. I would ask all participants to explain rather than rant, and try to find the crux of disagreement.
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Likeitwarm at 09:24 AM on 19 August 2022Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
So if CO2 increases temperature that increases H2O and H20 increases temperature, why doesn't that increase temperature forever or is there a mechanism that cools the climate before that happens?
Moderator Response:[PS]
Please see the myth https://skepticalscience.com/positive-feedback-runaway-warming.htm
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:11 AM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
On the Demand Side image I would like to see the action of 'reduced non-essential energy consumption'.
People living less than basic decent lives may 'need' to increase their energy consumption to live decently. But people who improve their lives beyond a basic decent life should try to limit their 'excess optional' energy consumption. The 'keeping up with the Jones'es' competition needs to become 'limiting energy use like the Jones'es'.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:02 AM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
A minor point on the Two Fruit Bowls image.
The word 'hell' in the Low bowl description is potentially distracting and not necessary to make the point.
We need to hyper-accelerate the implementation of low hanging actions.
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Doug Bostrom at 08:53 AM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
Ah-hah. Jason really wants us to notice Klaus Schwab.
Here's some background on why (note the parroting*). It helps to explain Jason's "hiding in plain sight" angle.
Jason's mapping the original Great Reset crowd-sourced anxiety onto the IPCC. It doesn't make the jump very well.
We're seeing a kind of platypus being stitched together.
Still not hearing any complaints about what we know about why we should deal w/warming, how this controverts common sense. Instead, hints of descent into old fashioned, dull and boring denial are becoming more visible. All roads lead there when there's no useful argument against "seatbelts are good."
The discussion remains substantially stuck on "my ideology is offended."
*“The Great Reset is not a conspiracy theory. The World Economic Forum website reveals its agenda.”
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:40 AM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
On the What's the Problem image something like the following wording may help limit misunderstanding.
...accumulating in the atmosphere, meaning the surface has to be warmer to balance emitted energy with incoming energy.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:31 AM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
On the 3 Nutshell image it may be helpful to mention that the costs of climate change increase significantly as the temperature increases.
A more important point is that ethically it is unacceptable to impose any costs or harm onto others no matter how beneficial it may be for some current day people. But that may be too heavy of a point to try to make.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:20 AM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
On the Short History image it may be helpful to clarify that the IPCC was established by the UNEP and WMO, and was endorsed by the UN General Assembly, in 1988.
Some conspiracy theory fans speculate about alternative explanations for the formation of the IPCC.
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nigelj at 07:56 AM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
Jason Chen @2
"Or are you disputing that the IPCC is pushing the same agenda? Their mitigations report doesn't propose a focused list of completable projects to halt AGW and fix the climate, but just the opposite. It inventories every category of human and economic activity and invites governments to re-engineer all of them, with no expectation of a "done" state ever. It's a roadmap for everything but fixing the climate. Klaus Schwab's agenda, with a different sort order."
I completely disagee. It's like you must be looking at another page. The page you linked clearly shows a list of multiple climate change mitigation options and they would obviously resolve the problem, if properly applied. There may be other approaches but that is beside the point.
The page includes another column of information on how this relates to the UN sustainable development goals. So what? These are not a " great reset". I would suggest most countries and political parties would already subscribe to them in principle anyway and clearly many countries are already working towards these with varying levels of success. The following are the UN sustainable development goals:
GOAL 1: No Poverty
GOAL 2: Zero Hunger
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
GOAL 13: Climate Action
GOAL 14: Life Below Water
GOAL 15: Life on Land
GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal -
One Planet Only Forever at 07:56 AM on 19 August 2022IPCC Explainer: Mitigation of Climate Change
In addition to my suggestion @3 that forests may be a good alternative to Titanics, in keeping with a 'living thing theme' maybe Blue Whales or Elephants could be used.
I am going through the presentation a second time to better understand it and provide additional comments.
On the Communicating Uncertainty image the Confidence image does not show that the confidence level is the combination of the amount/quality of evidence and the degree of agreement between the types of evidence. The presentation of the two as axis of a graph with confidence increasing diagonally up and to the right would be clearer.
Also on that panel the word "Asessing" under Confidence needs another 's'.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:00 AM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
JasonChen:
You are either playing word games, or not understanding basic writing.
"Assessments" are not taking actions to address a problem. The IPCC reviews available scientific literature and summarizes it.
"Formulating strategies" is not taking actions to address a problem. It is giving advice. In the case of the IPCC, it is using the knowldege of the science it has assessed to indicate what the effect of various actions might be. Then policy makers can use that advice (or ignore it) when they choose to try to address climate change.
You know, don't you? That pesky "Summary for Policy Makers" that accompanies each report?
You are seeing monsters under every bed you see.
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JasonChen at 03:52 AM on 19 August 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #32 2022
the IPCC's primary purpose is not addressing anthropogenic climate change.
Of course its purpose is to address climate change. Specifically:
- To make assessments of available scientific information on climate change.
- To make assessments of environmental and socio-economic impacts of climate change.
- To formulate response strategies to meet the challenge of climate change.
What's not that list is physics goals of fixing the climate or even predicting it well. 30 years later, the climate is neither fixed nor on a path to be fixed. Fixed hasn't even been defined. The IPCC hasn't identified anything close to a seat belt. The response strategies it has formulated have a conspicuous overlap with Klaus Schwab's agenda for maximal disruption. Large chunks of the world are rejecting them as economically and politically unpalatable. These are just facts.
Are they addressing climate change? Sure they are, in some sense.
