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Comments 4701 to 4750:

4701. One Planet Only Forever at 08:36 AM on 16 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part III
      

      Evan,

      This presentation of the problem is very helpful.

      It is undeniable that to avoid imposing unacceptably harmful climate change impacts on future generations NET will be required even if it is not "profitable or popular". The requirement for NET to be implemented without being popular or profitable helps to clarify the understanding of what is required for the future of humanity to be protected from harm done by actions of previous generations. Without systemic leadership change the implemented NET is likely to be inadequate, and potentially harmful rather than helpful. Also, developing a sustainable improving future can be understood to require systemic changes that reduce BAR. Reducing BAR will reduce the potential risks of implementing larger amounts of technological NET, or the even riskier implementation of other artificial technological methods that are claimed to solve the ghg global warming impact problem.

      This presentation also helps clarify how challenging it is to get global leadership to collectively act to responsibly and fairly limit global warming impacts and make amends for harm done. It is likely that the wealthy and powerful portion of the population in the developing world, there almost always are some very wealthy people in the developing nations or benefiting from actions in developing nations, will aspire to be more like the wealthy and powerful in the USA, Canada, and Australia (high per-capita impacting hide-outs for the climate impact opportunists) rather than aspiring to be more like the better examples set by the wealthy and powerful in some, but not all, parts of Europe.

      It is also important to be aware that a review of the historical evidence of human “advancement” leads to understanding that harmful pursuits of wealth and power have a history of Winning and Powerfully resisting being corrected. And the harmful winners can temporarily regionally win-back the power to undo justified helpful corrections that reduced their undeserved wealth and power. Those people have been winning the ability to harmfully compromise leadership in many nations, primarily with misleading marketing, especially through misleading marketing attacks on people who would help the general population better understand how harmful some of the wealthy and powerful actually are. As a result the historical trend line may even be an optimistic presentation of future impacts. Significant sustainable systemic leadership changes can be understood to need to occur that the evidence of history indicates have not yet been sustainably achieved in any wealthy powerful region.

      It is accurate to say that the developed attitudes in the current global set of governing systems are accurately described by the statement that "There is nothing in our experience to suggest that the world, as a whole, will accept stagnating standards of living. Developed countries want to consume more, developing countries want to raise their populations out of poverty." An extension of that understanding is that harm being done in pursuit of perceptions of improved living will be dismissed, discounted, or excused. A more insidious point is that many Developed countries have a history of not meaningfully sustainably reducing poverty within their population and do even less to help sustainably reduce poverty elsewhere. As your World Bank sourced chart indicates, global GDP has increased faster than global population. But, in spite of the increasing wealth, extreme poverty and tragic failures to avert horrific suffering by the poor continues to happen (the statistical measure of extreme poverty is being reduced, but tragic extreme poverty still occurs). And there are plenty of presentations of history showing the persistence of tragic poverty is a “constant throughout Greek - Roman - European conquest and colonization history” in spite of GDP rising faster than population population (read the 2020 Human Development Report to appreciate the flaw of using GDP as a measure of advancement).

      A good explanation for the “persistence of poverty in spite of increasing affluence” is that solving the poverty problem is “not profitable, or necessary, for the wealthy and powerful”. A similar explanation applies to the lack of action on climate change impacts. And action to sustainably solve the poverty and climate impact problem can easily be made unpopular among the less wealthy and less powerful through the appeals of misleading marketing tempting people to want more for themselves and see Others as the problem instead of understanding that the problem is the harmful members of the wealthy and powerful (and history is full of examples of the more helpful among the wealthy and powerful being unjustly, but very successfully, targeted for attack).

      Leadership action needs to systemically sustainably shift away from the history of harmfully compromised leadership actions that appease undeserving wealthy and powerful interests. Without the systemic change of leadership behaviour to penalize the harmful among the wealthy and powerful the indicated required actions are optimistic (i.e. less likely to happen). What is more likely to happen is a continued disregard for the harm done to the future generations, or the implementation of technological actions that are claimed to be solutions but are likely to be more harmful and less helpful than they are claimed to be (like many economic developments are discovered to be, especially new technological developments, especially if they get to be implemented “at scale” before an in-depth understanding of the consequences is developed).

      Achieving a sustainable improving future for humanity will require systemic change, especially the wealthier and more powerful portion of the global population reducing their level of consumption, reducing how harmful the consumption associated with their ways of living are, and giving up some level of perception of superiority relative to the less fortunate by acting to sustainably improve the lives of the less fortunate (i.e. the more fortunate helping the less fortunate and foregoing opportunities to obtain more personal benefits). That systemic change will reduce BAR. It will also reduce other harmful results, not just reduce the climate change impacts.

      A critical review of history indicates that institutions and related beliefs like the UN, the free market, and democracy were developed in the hopes of limiting the harm done by wealthy powerful people (and the IPCC and SDGs are even newer attempts to limit the harm done by unethical competitors for perceptions of superiority relative to others). Those developments are the most recent steps of the many steps of advancement of civilization. Each step was implemented as a result of it becoming undeniable that wealthy and powerful people competing for impressions of superiority relative to others produce harmful results. Without diligent Ethical Governing the less ethical people harmfully win unsustainable impressions of progress and prosperity for their misguiding leaders and misled followers. And those winning groups powerfully resist learning about the need to have their harmfully developed impressions of superiority and “Opportunity for More – the vicious pursuit of Growth (including GDP growth)” limited.

      Based on the evidence of what happened at COP26 this can be understood to have played out at COP26. The rational justified perspectives of the less fortunate who have not significantly contributed to the problem but suffer significant consequences from the problem, and would only contribute if they “choose to improve their lives in the ways the wealthier and more powerful did”, the nations with leadership that is less “captured” by wealthy and powerful people, were essentially dismissed. And the last minute power-play by India can be seen to be the wealthy and powerful in that nation abusing the perception that a “developing nation” like India should obtain financial aid and economic competitive advantage at the expense of the perceived to be more developed nations (but not pushing for benefits for the less powerful nations who are more harmed by what is going on). And the more developed nations that have leadership more captured by harmful wealthy and powerful people can be expected to have their general population, rather than their wealthy and powerful, pay whatever price is required. And it is likely that the poorest in those "helping" nations will suffer most by having the amount of assistance they obtain reduced rather than having the wealthy of the nation lose status (like the way the wealthy and powerful in France attempted to put a price on carbon without providing improved assistance to the less fortunate).

4702. swampfoxh at 11:35 AM on 14 November 2021
      Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)
      

      I, too, am a farmer. I once managed a cattle operation on 1,500 acres deeded and 15,000 acres of BLM in Colorado, running 600 cow/calf units. I became severely disappointed in the ecological devastation wrought by cattle on that expansive ranch. I became interested in the climate science in 2008 and have become involved in the peer review of a recently finished new study on the impact of Animal Agriculture. This study will probably be published this coming spring. Its results cover not only GGEs, but also a dozen other eco-topics negatively influenced by Animal Agriculture. It's a frightening picture. The use of fossil fuels in plant and animal agriculture show to be a very minor issue, compared to other issues, in this study. Stay in touch here and I will see to it that Skep/Sci gets a copy on the day of pub.

4703. John Wise at 02:22 AM on 14 November 2021
      Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)
      

      swampfoxh: I am a farmer and have some understanding of agriculture's impact on emissions. There is a wide variation in percentage attribution among different sources. Certainly ag is responsible for significant methane and nitrous oxide emissions. But included in ag's overall emissions is the burning of fossil fuels in tractors, trucking, crop drying, etc. If we can use renewable electricity and alternative fuels like hydrogen to power equipment and dry crops, then agriculture's emissions become a smaller part of the problem.

4704. swampfoxh at 21:50 PM on 13 November 2021
      Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)
      

      Clever, entertaining, cute presenter with charming English "accent"... But targeting the lesser villian. It could be said that fossils fuels remain the whipping boy in order to crush the increasing evidence that agriculture, both plant and animal, will be able to  cruise through the breach of the thick, smoking line of causality. Continuing to whack at the fossil fuel companies, "those mean old Capitalist running dogs" grants pleasure equivalent to a sensamillia joint, but after the high, the agriculture industry, mostly the animal portion, still owns responsibility for 33% of an aggregated ten important categories of adverse ecological damage. But, who can blame farmers? For anything? Both the farmer and the oil executive are merely providing a product that everybody wants, and doing so in a form practically everybody is willing to put up with. We have closely scrutinized fossil fuels for their single contribution to global warming, let's apply the same scrutiny to the multiple negative contributions  agriculture makes to an increasingly dangerous  change in the climate.

4705. swampfoxh at 11:55 AM on 13 November 2021
      Supreme Court to weigh EPA authority to regulate greenhouse pollutants
      

      Perhaps we should consider a dialog that lays aside the greenhouse gas emissions for awhile and turn some attention to the stresses on the ecosystem from desertification, deforestation, eutrophication, habitat distruction, species extinction, unsustainable fresh water use, refuse disposal and various unhelpful land use conversions. Animal Agriculture was not a serious topic at COP26, but it should have been.

      My thanks to the monitor for clarifying the legal definition of greenhouse gases.

4706. Paul W at 11:30 AM on 13 November 2021
      Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)
      

      Says to all and is fun about it!

4707. swampfoxh at 09:17 AM on 13 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part III
      

      EVAN,

      You work is certainly most useful if we could convince polymakers to employ it. Sadly, I've not seen much movement. As to your population numbers, I've not looked back at prior data. Your number is nearly twice mine, so I concede to error. Another twelve years of population growth, placing another billion humans on Earth, will be most painful. "See you around".

      Regards,

      Swampy

4708. MA Rodger at 01:53 AM on 13 November 2021
      CO2 lags temperature
      

      Yoshi @635,

      I fear you misinterpret the 90% figure. As described by Skakun et al (2012) (& discussed in this SkS post), the 90% is not the percentage of warming coming out of an ice age that is caused by CO2. It is the percentage when increases in CO2 occur prior to increases in global temperature.

      The actual post-ice-age warming resulting from increased CO2 is a portion of the GHG warming (which also includes methane). The GHG warming is given as 37% of the total in this CarbonBrief explainer. (The remainder is given as 50% ice albedo & 13% dust & aerosols.) The actual CO2 forcing is about 2.5Wm^-2.

      The cooling of the world that leads to a glacial maximum is much slower than the warming of the world that leads to an interglacial. The cooling begins with increased albedo in high northern latitudes as they lose sunlight through the orbital wobbles.

      The warming is quicker because it takes less time to melt down an ice sheet than it does to build it up. As with the warming, CO2 reacts to this cooling and increases the effect.

4709. Yoski at 22:51 PM on 12 November 2021
      CO2 lags temperature
      

      article: CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean? LINK
      "This positive feedback is necessary to trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to cause such variation.
      ...
      While the orbital cycles triggered the initial warming, overall, more than 90% of the glacial-interglacial warming occured after that atmospheric CO2 increase"
      Summary:
      - Orbital changes alone are too weak to cause such variation.
      - 90% of the glacial-interglacial warming occured after that atmospheric CO2 increase
      Question: What caused the cooling? Certainly not orbital changes, since they are too weak as pointed out above.
      With CO2 causing 90% of the warming and, at the end of the warming trend the atmosphere having very elevated levels of CO2, we should have a runaway warming trend that is unstoppable, but clearly that was not the case as the next ice age approached.
      There seems to be a serious logical flaw in the argumentation of that article.

      Moderator Response:

      [DB] Shortened and activated link.

4710. nigelj at 06:00 AM on 12 November 2021
      Supreme Court to weigh EPA authority to regulate greenhouse pollutants
      

      Swampfox, anthropogenic climate change especially at the upper end of projections is modelled to increase the mortality rate especially in tropical countries. But anthropogenic climate change is unlikely to lead to half or all  of humanity going extinct. I dont know of any peer revewied science claiming things like that. Its hard to see how warming in cold countries would somehow lead to massive levels of human extinction in those countries. Its easy to see a problem in tropical countries. Impacts of climate change on agriculture globally are modelled to be very serious but fall far short of extinction level events. From what Ive read.

      However climate change is modelled to cause many plant and animal species to go extinct because they wont be able to adapt fast enough. So you better hope technology can save us from climate change because its looking like the only viable solution all things considered. You better rethink some of your ideas.

4711. cph at 21:57 PM on 11 November 2021
      It's the sun
      

       

      Diagram showing the monthly fluctuations in total global cloud cover since July 1983. During the observation period, the total amount of clouds fluctuated from about 69 percent in 1987 to about 64 percent in 2000. The annual variation in cloud cover follows the annual variation in atmospheric water vapor content, which presumably reflects the asymmetrical distribution of land and ocean on planet Earth.

       

      Within the still short period of satellite cloud cover observations, global cloud cover reached a maximum of about 69 percent in 1987 and a minimum of about 64 percent in 2000 (see diagram above), a decrease of about 5 percent. This decrease corresponds roughly to a net change in radiation of around 0.9 W / m2 within a period of only 13 years, which can be compared with the total net change estimated by the IPCC 2007 report from 1750 to 2006 of 1.6 W / m2 for all climate drivers including greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning(cooresponds to your mentioned 2,5-3W/m² in 2021). These observations leave little doubt that cloud cover variations can have a profound impact on global climate and meteorology on almost every time scale considered.

      The total reflectance (albedo) of the planet earth is about 30 percent, which means that about 30 percent of the incident short-wave solar radiation is reflected back into space. If all the clouds were removed, the global albedo would drop to around 15 percent and the short-wave energy available to warm the planet's surface would increase from 239 W / m2 to 288 W / m2 (Hartmann 1994). However, long-wave radiation would also be affected, which emits 266 W / m2 into space compared to the current 234 W / m2 (Hartmann 1994). The net effect of removing all clouds would therefore still be an increase in net radiation of around 17 W / m2. So the global cloud cover has a significant overall cooling effect on the planet, although the net effect of high and low clouds is opposite.

      HK: - "but also through its warming effect through its strong greenhouse effect, which is the most important of all positive (reinforcing) feedbacks on a global level."

      
      According to the current status, the net radiation effect of clouds is -19W / m² (Wild 2019) and corresponds very well with + 0.9W / m² per 5% less cloud cover.

       

      High levels of global cloud cover are associated with low global temperatures, demonstrating the cooling effect of clouds.                        A simple linear fit model suggests that a 1 percent increase in global cloud cover corresponds to a global temperature decrease                        of about 0.07 ° C.

      Moderator Response:

      [DB] You are again off-topic for this post.  Your entire argument revolves around clouds, so if you're going to prosecute that agenda, please take it here (after reading the post and all of the comments in the discussion thread):
      
      https://skepticalscience.com/clouds-negative-feedback-intermediate.htm

       

      [BL] The user cph has been confirmed as a sock puppet of the previously-banned user coolmaster. Until the admins can delete the account of cph, any further posts by cph wll be deleted as soon as moderators find them. Please do not respond to any comments you come across.

       

4712. Evan at 21:22 PM on 11 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part III
      

      swampfoxh My goal is to define alternative paths, from doing nothing to being very aggressive (albeit complicated), and then encouraging people to use the evolution of the Keeling Curve as a check on which path we are following.

      As for population, using this data on Worldometers, whether I use a 50-year period from 1970-2020, a 10-year period from 2010-2020, or a 1-year period from 2019-2020, I come up with a net increase of about 80 million people/yr. What data set are you using?

       

4713. swampfoxh at 20:37 PM on 11 November 2021
      Supreme Court to weigh EPA authority to regulate greenhouse pollutants
      

      Further, a 3 to 5 centigrade increase in average surface temperature will probably extinctify much, if not most of the human race. This would be a good thing since "anthropogenic" is the sole cause of short to medium term climate change (Milankovich Cycles ignored). A mass human extinction event would "save" the planet because it would save the plant and animal organisms that seem to have helped make the Earth livable in the first place. When one looks back some 8,000 years, it's clear that only humans have fostered the slow changes that have brought the planet to its "boiling" point. Even until the dawn of the 19th Century, the Anthropogenesees harmed the planet very little. But now, reckless indifference has wrought...so technology and courts will not save us.

4714. swampfoxh at 20:12 PM on 11 November 2021
      Supreme Court to weigh EPA authority to regulate greenhouse pollutants
      

      Calling CO2 a "pollutant" is a stretch beyond all stretches. She uses the term, "other pollutants" and copollutants which clearly shows she believes CO2 belongs in the family of pollutants. The term "greenhouse gases" must clearly include 02 and N and Argon, etc, since the entire composition of the atmosphere is a sort of "balanced" greenhouse gas that provides a "heated" (greenhouse) atmosphere supporting a vast array of living organisms. Stunningly, we have to spend time and resources manipulating our environment rather than accepting what all other Earth organisms accept: All others accept the planet in which they find themselves.

      Moderator Response:

      [DB] Although it has some very important and beneficial effects, CO2 meets the legal and encyclopedic definitions of a "pollutant", and human CO2 emissions pose a threat to public health and welfare. 
      
      “The term “air pollutant” means any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive (including source material, special nuclear material, and byproduct material) substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.”
      
      Legally in the USA, CO2 is thus an air pollutant which may be regulated if it may endangers public health or welfare.
      
      https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview
      https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/clean-air-act-text
      https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-air-act
      EPA Link
      https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7602
      https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7408
      https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
      EPA Archive Link
      
      O2, N and Argon are not greenhouse gases, lacking the triatomic/polyatomic structure needed to store the requisite vibrational energy that greenhouse gases do.
      
      Please take further discussion of CO2 being a pollutant or not to this thread:
      
      https://skepticalscience.com/co2-pollutant.htm

4715. swampfoxh at 19:30 PM on 11 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part III
      

      I have a different number reflecting the annual net (births v. deaths) addition of humans to planet Earth...44 million. Evan's number is 80 million. Can anyone close the gap between our numbers? Thanks.

4716. swampfoxh at 11:45 AM on 11 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part III
      

      This is far too complex to ever be achieved. Why do we bother with this? There are only two main drivers of a change in climate that endangers survival of the human race: human overpopulation and animal agriculture. Neither will ever be targeted because both require draconian remedies, not much unlike the remedy described above. But, these do not have to be targeted because their bad effects will come to pass anyway. After that, the planet will adjust itself to a half billion people eating plants, those same people living under the strict prohibition of further procreation, all the while  conforming to the final end of animal agriculture.

4717. HK at 06:44 AM on 10 November 2021
      It's the sun
      

      My point in #1292 was that the 0.5 W/m² of forcing from clouds and snow/ice is small compared to the overall net forcing over the last 150 years or so and that the albedo change brought up by you is at least partly a direct consequence of the warming, i.e., one of the positive feedbacks.

      However, I will admit that clouds and humidity are complex and can be influenced by other factors in addition to the direct result of man-made greenhouse gases. Desertification and deforestation in general and especially cutting down tropical rainforests can have a profound impact on the local hydrological cycle, changing humidity, cloud cover, rainfall and run-off and thus have an impact on the local temperature as well. So yes, man-made climate change isn't only about the greenhouse effect and the warming caused by it, but it's definitely the most important part of it on a global scale.
      It's also worth noting that even if the relative humidity seems to have decreased somewhat for the reasons explained here, the absolute or specific humidity has in fact increased, just as expected in a warming world.

      

       

      
      Water has an impact on the temperature not only via its removal of latent heat through evaporation – which has a local cooling impact – but also through its warming impact via its strong greenhouse effect, which is the most important of all the positive (amplifying) feedbacks on a global scale.

4718. cph at 22:01 PM on 9 November 2021
      It's the sun
      

      HK@1292 - "BTW, if clouds and snow/ice changed by themselves and not as a feedback to warming caused by GHGs, we wouldn't get a cooling stratosphere..."

      --- I did not understand your last sentence. I am of the opinion that, for example, a changed cloud albedo cannot be explained by a rise in temperature alone. Changes and anomalies in global mean cloud cover can also be caused by fewer (sulfate) aerosols or expanding deserts (dry regions become drier).

      https://www.carbonbrief.org/satellite-data-reveals-impact-of-warming-on-global-water-cycle

      

      Evaporation increases by + 2.3 mm / year, which is not fully compensated for by increased precipitation of + 1 mm / year. A decreasing runoff through the rivers of -1.01 mm / year and a falling groundwater level of -0.75 mm / year quantify the drainage of the continents. This drainage (through drained bogs, wetlands, groundwater, aquifers, canalization of rivers and a constantly growing sealing of urban areas) is just as man-made as the CO² emissions, rising temperatures and the resulting higher evaporation. Too little H²O in desert regions and the earth's atmosphere, which in summer extend through droughts up to the Arctic Circle, are a temperature driver. Too much CO² is just as warming as too little H²O. Less evapotranspiration -> less cloud albedo -> higher incoming radiation energy and record temperatures on the earth's surface -> even faster drying out with even higher temperatures - imho, similar to the ice-snow albedo, form a vicious circle.

      The authors estimate a "statistically significant" increase in evapotranspiration of around 10% above the long-term mean (corresponds to a temperature increase over land areas of ~ + 1.44 ° C). During the same period, precipitation only increased by 3% and global river runoff decreased by 6%.

      ---

      What is noticeable here is a simultaneous decrease in relative humidity and cloudiness, which certainly correlates with a general increase in the number of hours of sunshine.

      

       

      

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] The user cph has been confirmed as a sock puppet of the previously-banned user coolmaster. Until the admins can delete the account of cph, any further posts by cph wll be deleted as soon as moderators find them. Please do not respond to any comments you come across.

4719. gws at 13:17 PM on 9 November 2021
      Tiny leaks, big impacts: New research points to urban indoor methane leaks
      

      Never mind, just found this recent overview:

      Global methane emissions from the human body: Past, present and future

4720. gws at 13:14 PM on 9 November 2021
      Tiny leaks, big impacts: New research points to urban indoor methane leaks
      

      Interesting point Ian. Do you know of a study that has estimated human methane emissions?

4721. cph at 08:33 AM on 9 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      michael sweet@19 - "It appears that large scale irrigation lowers the temperature a little. This has been known for a long time..."

      -— What you call a wild plan - I call it water cooling. It is much more efficient than air cooling and is generally described in climate science as the Bowen ratio. While it is ~ 0.1 over tropical oceans and rainforests, it reaches ~ 10 in deserts.

      Decreasing surface BR plays a major role in the surface energy budget. It is estimated that the cloud feedback may increase albedo by 0.13 and reduce Rnet by 25 W m−2 in summer over agricultural land.

      
      ms: - " The suggestion of piping enourmous volumes of water to the desert is absurd. / ...all available water is already used for irrigation and no additional water remains. "

      -— I suggested a water transfer without pipeline ! Absurd - is to think that you only have to turn on the tap to get water. / Perhaps in the Central Valley people should start thinking about using the water retention measures I described above. - In principle a simple, worldwide request to politics, agriculture, industry but also to private persons to build up extensive water reserves wherever & whenever possible in order to use them generously in plant growth, evaporation, clouds and "water cooling" during periods of drought in spring and summer.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] The user cph has been confirmed as a sock puppet of the previously-banned user coolmaster. Until the admins can delete the account of cph, any further posts by cph wll be deleted as soon as moderators find them. Please do not respond to any comments you come across.

4722. One Planet Only Forever at 06:27 AM on 9 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      Related to my comments@6 and @4:

      The recent Opinion Piece "When it comes to climate change, the heavy hand of colonizers is as important as our carbon footprint", shared on the CBC News website, is a version of my understanding.

4723. Ian Forrester at 04:53 AM on 9 November 2021
      Tiny leaks, big impacts: New research points to urban indoor methane leaks
      

      One of the big differences between a busy building (pre covid) and an empty building (post covid) is the lack of humans in the buildings. Humans are a well known source of methane. They should do further experiments to quantitate human produced methane. They could do an isotope analysis on the methane in the exhaust gas to determine how much is biologically produced versus fossil methane. Secondly they could analyse for minor constituents in the exhausted air (e.g. ethane) and compare to the natural gas supplied to the area..

4724. One Planet Only Forever at 04:09 AM on 9 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      Re-reading does not always help.

      The opening to my comment@6 shold be:

      I agree that "... the baseline emissions seem to be one of the most difficult challenges, ...". But I am reluctant to believe that substantial negative emissions technology (NET) will be developed and can harmlessly offset the harmful impacts of other technological developments that were not understood to be harmful when they were implemented (and because they became popular and profitable which made the harmful new ways powerfully able to resist efforts to limit or end the harm done).

4725. One Planet Only Forever at 04:05 AM on 9 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      Evan@5

      I agree that "... the baseline emissions seem to be one of the most difficult challenges, ...". But I am reluctant to believe that substantial negative emissions technology (NET) will be developed and can harmlessly offset the harmful impacts of other technological developments that were not understood to be harmful when they were implemented and because popular and profitable (which made the harmful new ways powerfully able to resist efforts to limit or end the harm done).

      My baseline for understanding the problem may be the difference regarding our thoughts.

      My baseline understanding is that poorly governed and inadequately limited pursuits of personal benefit have over-developed many harmful unsustainable ways of living. Un-developing the harmful over-developed activity is required. And that would mean un-doing the incorrect beliefs that the developed perceptions of prosperity and superiority are "deserved" and "deserve" to be maintained. That may mean reducing GDP as the harmful over-development is removed from the system. And it means that it is harmfully incorrect to believe that the correction of harmful over-development should be delayed in order to maintain increasing GDP and to maintain harmfully over-developed perceptions of prosperity and enjoyable living.

      The reports you refer to do indeed indicate the magnitude of the problem and what to expect if the current system is not changed. The expectation that the harmfully incorrect over-developed food desires of wealthier people will be aspired to by everyone else is indeed the expected result if the systemic beliefs that cause the harmful pursuit of impressions of status are not changed. The belief that eating beef, and other meats, is a sign of status is just one of the many incorrectly developed beliefs that seriously compromise the nutrition and health of wealthier people.

      I would say that studies based on the perspectives of helpful people "from within the harmfully over-developed system of beliefs" are like ivory tower speculation. The reality is that the resistance to the required corrections is more powerful than the helpful people "thinking within the system" are acknowledging. What should be presented is the understanding that unless there are serious leadership actions that rapidly bring about significant systemic changes, including ending beliefs like "eating beef or other meat is a sign of superiority", there is no likelihood that impacts will be limited to 4C. A related ivory tower belief is that "non-profitable carbon removal" will be implemented at a meaningful scale (and a related ivory tower belief based on the incorrect belief that "new technology is helpful advancement" would be the failure to recognize the potential harm of industrial scale carbon removal technology or other "technological development" believed to be solutions that allow harmful unsustainable activity to continue longer).

      Without significant systemic changes the warming impacts are likely to exceed 6C, though the breakdown of global civilization, and the resulting global conflict and strife, may temporarily, or permanently, stall the harm done by the "endless harmful pursuit of More personal benefits and new likely to be harmful technological developments".

      The 2020 Human Development Report presents a current summary of understanding that contradicts developed worldviews and beliefs held by many people among the wealthier and more powerful portion of the global population. And the 2020 HDR is not investigating things in a New way. It is a continuation of a long history of efforts to better understand how to protect the future of humanity that included the 1972 Stockholm Conference.

      The worldview preferred by the wealthy and powerful has been constantly challenged by thoughtful people with interests that are not motivated by pursuit of personal benefit (for thousands of years). But more harmful wealthy and powerful people have repeatedly been able to quash or delay the advancements of civilization when that advancement would be contrary to the interests of the wealthy and powerful.

      The system aspects that need to change are the aspects that the harmful among the wealthy and powerful fight to establish and that they can take advantage of to defend their interests and increase their ability to be more wealthy and more powerful.

      One of the most insidious realities of the developed systems is the many ways that "Interests in Personal Freedoms" can be used against "Advancement of civilization's interests". The freedom to be more harmful and believe whatever excuses that behaviour is a significant part of the resistance to increased acceptance of climate science and the required limiting of the climate change harm being done to the future of humanity.

4726. JavaTom at 02:37 AM on 9 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part I
      

      Although I've been aware of the Keeling Curve for a few years, this article has given me a much better appreciation of its value. For example, I did not realize the strong relationship between atmospheric CO₂ concentration and the temperature increase in 30 years time.

      Of particular interest to me was the observation that this measure is the ultimate indication of the effectiveness of our efforts to reduce GHG emissions. I love the simplicity but I'm not clear on how the Keeling Curve which is a measure of CO₂ can allow for methane emissions.  Methane takes years to resolve into CO₂ but in the meantime is a very potent GHG.

4727. michael sweet at 07:12 AM on 8 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      CPH,

      The paper you lnk describes the effect of irrigation on surface temperatures.  It appears that large scale irrigation lowers the temperature a little.  This has been known for a long time and the authors are increasing knowledge of this effect.

      There is no mention at all of your wild scheme of dramatically increasing irrigation to reduce overall global warming.  In many areas, like California's Central Valley discussed in the paper, all available water is already used for irrigation and no additional water remains.  

      It appears to me that you have made up your wild scheme on your own.  It has been pointed out to you that you would have to increase the amount of water evaporated every year to combat increasing temperatures so your proposal is impractical.  The suggestion of piping enourmous volumes of water to the desert is absurd. The energy required to pump the water alone would be impractical.

      This is a scientific site.  Posters are required to support their claims with references to the scientific literature.  Long posts supporting your wild scheme are not appropriate here.

4728. MA Rodger at 04:33 AM on 8 November 2021
      Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
      

      Chris.Shattock @157,

      I would suggest that your estimate for the exhaled flux of CO2 from humanity of 10.4Gt(CO2)/yr is of the correct order of magnitude but a lot higher than most estimates which put it at something like 1kg(CO2)/human/day. (If you have a scan up-thread, there will surely be references to this finding.) So 6 billion humans would be breathig out perhaps 2.2Gt(CO2)/year. Mind today's human population is a little higher than 6 billion.

      As for this exhaled flux increasing the level of atmospheric CO2, as explained @158, our breath is part of a cycle, CO2 taken from the atmosphere and then returned to the atmosphere. This cycle is quantified as "net primary production" which totals about 60Gt(C)/yr = 220Gt(CO2)/yr from land and a similar amount within the oceans. So humanity is exhaling just 1% of a cycle that does not actually add to atmospheric CO2.

      And the biggest impact hmanity has on the scale of this cycle is reducing its size through cutting down trees and repalcing the forest area with farmland. According to Harberl et al (2007), humanity has hus reduced the cycle by about 10%.

4729. Evan at 04:01 AM on 8 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      OPOF@4

      Whereas I don't disagree with you're saying, one of the most difficult parts of the decarbonization problem is what to do about baseline emissions, which are mostly derived from agriculture. An estimate by Larkin et. al. (read here) seems to put baseline emissions at about 1 ton/person/yr CO2e. Current emissions are about 32 GT/yr (read here), meaning that baseline emissions are about 25% of current emissions. Beyond decarbonization of the energy sector, the baseline emissions seem to be one of the most difficult challenges, most likely requiring substantional negative emissions technology (NET) to offset emissions we cannot otherwise eliminate.

4730. One Planet Only Forever at 03:48 AM on 8 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      Swampfoxh@1

      "...if the world was populated by 1/10th the people spread across similar income divides, the problem of bending the Keeling Curve would presumably be that much easier."

      But 1/10 the population continuing BAU is not "a solution to the climate change problem". The key words in that last Footnote are "...would presumably be ... easier". Reducing the most harmful aspects of the population is what is required. BAU will result in any population continuing to grow more harmful behaviours in pursuit of "More personal benefit". That BAU population would continue to face the harmful challenge of resistance to giving up developed comforts and perceptions of relative status. Without systemic change that problem would continue to grow no matter how small the population is.

      Read the 2020 Human Development Report. Things can get better. But it will not be as easy as reducing the total global population.

      The problem is people who get more personal benefit by being more harmful than Others being able to powerfully resist having to reduce how harmful they are because they would lose perceived status if they did that and resist making amends for harm that has been done for their benefit.

      Humanity should be able to enjoy millions of years of improving prosperity on this planet, without extending the problem to Mars and without unsustainable exploitation of the Moon or asteroids. That can only happen if human activity is governed and limited to be helpful development of new things and helpful un-development of harmful things. Harmful pursuers of more personal benefit are not helpful. And it is also harmful to hope that "new technological economic driven developments" will be helpful rather than be like the history of harmful profitable and popular developments that powerfully resist being undeveloped.

      The fundamentals of the system undeniably need to be significantly changed. Being richer cannot be allowed to excuse being more harmful. Being higher status needs to be restricted to people who are less harmful and more helpful than their peers of those who have lower status.

      Only when that systemic change of perceptions of status happens will there be a solution to the climate challenge and the other harm that is increasingly compromising the ability of future generations to thrive and survive. And it will also result in development and un-development that will allow a larger total human population to live sustainably live by fitting in as sustainable parts of a robust diversity of life on this planet.

4731. HK at 01:57 AM on 8 November 2021
      Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
      

      157:

      Where does that extra carbon we breathe out come from if not from the food we have eaten?
      And if you agree that it does come from the food, where does that carbon come from if not directly or indirectly from plants extracting that carbon from the atmosphere recently while they were growing? (you have heard about the photosynthesis, right?)

      And there is no specific fraction of CO₂ that is radiation transparent since all CO₂ molecules absorb very strongly at some infrared wavelengths but weaker or hardly not at all at other wavelengths. There are slight variations in the absorption depending on the isotopes of carbon and oxygen, but almost all CO₂ molecules are made of carbon-12 and oxygen-16.

4732. cph at 00:42 AM on 8 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      Michael Sweet@17

      -— To prevent water from evaporating on lake Victoria(wet region) "only" makes more water available in a dry region without any pipeline. 

      To increase/intensify the global amount of evapotranspiration & water vapor in seasonal & regional, unsaturated conditions like drought events  - we can use very simple tools to retain rain/water  from river discharge. This starts with:

      - urban micro-messures like rain barrels, cisterns or rain retention basins with an overflow onto unsealed terrain

      -  changes from groundwater use to flowing waters and / or river filtrate by agriculture, industries

      - anywhere in nature to rewet moors, wetlands and forests using an old hydrological tecnic.

      Please provide a peer reviewed reference to support your wild scheme to evaporate water to affect the climate.

      

      https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/540722/feart-08-00245-HTML/image_m/feart-08-00245-g004.jpg   

       

4733. Tristan287 at 00:01 AM on 8 November 2021
      It's methane
      

      Does anyone know where I can find atmospheric CH4 levels on million-year timescales? For CO2 these are readily avilable.

4734. Chris.Shattock at 22:03 PM on 7 November 2021
      Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
      

      Your non-empircal assumptions are incorrect: Assuming dry air (which exhaled air is not) at 1bar and 288K, current atmospheric CO2 content amounts to around 0.000490 mol (0.04% by volume) - this is what humans generally inhale. Exhalation post metablism has a molar content of 0.04 mol (4% by volume). Given the molar mass of CO2 that is a mass increase of 1.7388 g/mol.
      Assume a population of 6bn split equally by men, women and children of an average respiration volume of 6,000, 4,000 and 2,000 ml and 10 respirations per minute. In a 24-hour period for that population exhaled air has a volume of 5,702,400,000 cubic metres.
      The relative weight of inhaled CO2 is 1.2288% for one cubic meter of air at 1.225 kg/m3 = 15g.
      The relative weight of exhaled CO2 is 6.0763%. That is an increase of 4.945 times making the increased weight of CO2 in exhaled air 19.945 g. So the increased mass of exhaled CO2 per respiration is approximately 5 g.
      For the assumed population the mass of the exhaled CO2 increment is therefore 28.5Mt per day, or 10.4Gt per annum.
      Where does that 10.4Gt feature in your 'carbon cycle' mass balance given that, at least for 2019, that figure is greater than the 'land-use emissions' and amounts to around a third of industrial and fossil fuel emissions? Let's not even talk about what fraction of exhaled CO2 is radiation transparent rather than reflective.

4735. michael sweet at 17:30 PM on 7 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      cph:

      So your plan is to prevent water from evaporating from lakes to provide water to evaporate to increase the amount of water in the atmosphere?  Do you see that preventing water from evaporating would reduce the amount of water in the atmosphere?  This is a zero sum game.

      While it might be beneficial for farmers to obtain more water for irrigation by lowering evaporation of water from irrigation lakes, it would not result in greater water in the atmosphere.  In addition, the amount of water you propose to save is much smaller than the amount you want to evaporate. 

      Please provide a peer reviewed reference to support your wild scheme to evaporate water to affect the climate.

4736. cph at 07:39 AM on 7 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      michael sweet@15

      "Where do you plan to obtain 1630 km3 of water for your wild scheme?"

      -— Of course, it is initially only about the theoretical possibility of global evaporating such an enormous amount of water(1639km³) in a 9.2 million km² of desert - in response to Jim Eager's@13 claim - which I doubt: JE: - "it has to do with the fact that you can not directly increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere..."

      -— But if you want to bring additional water into the Nile and the Sahara, there are still options that have not yet been practiced. To do this, you have to travel to the source of the Nile - Lake Victoria (68,000 km²). Cover a 10% of the lake area with photovoltaics to supply the megacities on the shores of the lake with renewable energy.

      The surface of the lake evaporates about 1.5m³ per m² per year - so that the PV means that about 10km³ of water per year remain in the also somewhat cooler lake and generate additional GWh of electricity in the dams on the long path of the Nile, but also enable additional agriculture. You can multiply this amount on the many other lakes and dams of the Nile, but 1639km³ for the Sahara alone is naturally utopian. BTW ~1639km³ of water is needed by plants to sequester ~10Gt of CO²/year.

      
      MS: - "Farmers already evaporate as much water as they can. Little excess water remains anywhere in the world."

      
      -— Farmers evaporate as much water as is available to them. In many regions, however, this becomes less and less due to pumped-out groundwater in summer - and the land temperatures that are ~1.5 ° C higher inevitably require ~10% more evaporation and water.

      
      Desertification and water scarcity is not a joke for many region with arid, semi-arid and continental climate- to intensify the water cycle over these land areas is a good idea. Water and rain retention a way to counteract the decreasing mean global relativ humidity over land areas. Even if the water vapor content of the atmosphere stays more or less the same - increased latent heat flux to the atmosphere = less sensible heat and cooling at the surface where we live.

4737. HK at 01:05 AM on 7 November 2021
      It's the sun
      

      "Explained by the cloud and snow / ice albedo that has decreased in the last few decades (0,5W/m² which is a lot)."

       

      The net forcing from the preindustrial period when counting both the positive forcing from the greenhouse gases and the negative forcing from man-made aerosols is now roughly 2.5–3 W/m².
      Changes in clouds and the snow/ice albedo are positive feedbacks amplifying that warming. The most important and fastest of those is the water vapour feedback which roughly doubles the initial warming.

      BTW, if clouds and snow/ice changed by themselves and not as a feedback to warming caused by GHGs, we wouldn't get a cooling stratosphere or more warming in winter than summer at high northern latitudes.

4738. swampfoxh at 00:33 AM on 7 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      I'm in total sympathy with your offering here. I do lament the fact that persons "like us" can devote so much of our lives to get at the essence of something very important, especially a matter of survival, yet knowing that humans are their own worst enemy. I don't see other species trying to commit suicide which makes me wonder if humans are native to planet earth.

4739. Evan at 00:15 AM on 7 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      swampfoxh@1

      "and like the above essay, such approaches are mere intellectual gymnastics in the understory of an ivory tower."

      I won't disagree with you. I am merely clarifying what must happen to reach Net-0 Emissions so that people can monitor for themselves how well we are, or are not, translating talk into action.

4740. cph at 00:09 AM on 7 November 2021
      It's the sun
      

      HK@1290 -

      "The only explanation making sense is that the Earth gives off less heat to space."

      --- Another additional explanation would be the fact, that the earth absorbs more short-wave solar energy from space, although the solar constant(1360,5W/m²) tends to decrease actually.

      Explained by the cloud and snow / ice albedo that has decreased in the last few decades (0,5W/m² which is a lot).

       

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] The user cph has been confirmed as a sock puppet of the previously-banned user coolmaster. Until the admins can delete the account of cph, any further posts by cph wll be deleted as soon as moderators find them. Please do not respond to any comments you come across.

4741. swampfoxh at 23:26 PM on 6 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part II
      

      The last sentence of this essay is the answer: A reduction in human population from 8 billion to 800 million. An additional answer would be to eliminate industrial animal agriculture, the elimination of which would allow the planet's sustainable number of humans to rise to about 2.2 billion (BAU). Then, various steps could be required to trim GGEs further.

      Of course, none of this is going to happen...and like the above essay, such approaches are mere intellectual gymnastics in the understory of an ivory tower.

4742. michael sweet at 23:18 PM on 6 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      Cph:

      A quick Google gives the flow of the Nile river as about 90 km³ per year.  Where do you plan to obtain 1630 km³ of water for your wild scheme?

      Build me a factory that can permanently sequester 10 gigatons per year of carbon dioxide and I can solve the climate problem.  Too bad that is not a practical plan.  Farmers already evaporate as much water as they can.  Little excess water remains anywhere in the world.  You cannot pipe the flow of the Amazon river to the middle of the Saraha dessert.

4743. cph at 22:28 PM on 6 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      Jim Eager@13

      - "It has nothing to do with the radiative forcing of H2O, it has to do with the fact that you can not directly increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere... / ...it can only act as a feedback, not as a driver or forcing."

      https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aae018

      The fact that H2O is understood primarily as a feedback constituent does not mean these forcings cannot be quantified, and the relatively new concept of "effective radiative forcing" allows for this to be done.

      

       

      If you give me the volume of water from Lake Ontario(1639km³) - I could evaporate it in the Sahara within 20 days - to directly increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere (for a few days).

       

4744. nigelj at 06:06 AM on 5 November 2021
      Discourses of Climate Delay
      

      David Hawk. I dont understand what you are talking about. Could you please clarify your views in plain language and, without all the social science jargon and psychobable and without the confusing impenetrable ancient history about the dissertation.

4745. David Hawk at 22:21 PM on 4 November 2021
      Discourses of Climate Delay
      

      This article does seem insightful relative to personality type-castings and climate change results, but its implications leave the problem at the doorway of education or personality typologies and features. There are other approaches but they are less complementary to the species and its membership. 

      Another approach was used in a 1975-77 international project on environmental deterioration as a result of general human characteristics and a species attitude towards nature. It did not end in particulat personality profiles nor educational backgrounds and foregrounds.

      The research began with concern in humans having a general distrust, even dislike, of nature and natural processes in psychology as measured in industrial processes. Nature was seen as implicitly systemic while humans prefered being seen as analytic. The analytic was shown to be reductionistic, segmented and absent of context, while having reverence for cause-effect conclusions as abstractions. Any reference to management as wrong in the longer-term, as comparied to factory workers proving to be more insightful, was said to be "ad hominem," whatever disbelievers, usually upper management but not CEOs, might mean each time they said such. This was endemic to the human approach to problems. In the research it was called legalism in search of finding a legal order.

      The alternative posed from the research with twenty major international firms and six governments was a more natural, neogtiated order. This began in what had been learned in Prisoner's Dilemma with Rapaport. The three volume research conclusions appeared, with an ending with research from a participant on climate change if the human psyche did not find a paythway to appreciate the natural (Black was in the project).  This approach to governance requied self-regulation of human relations to the environment, each other, and self.

      In 1978 this was presented in a dissertation at the U of Pennsylvania. The cross-disciplinary professor-committee finally accepted it but asked for the "cimate-change" part be removed with more analysis as to why such was very questionable. They asked for traditional results that could be abstracted from "research details."  They saw general systems thinking as anti-science?  The Head of EPA was furious about the study and the dissertation, as was the Dean of the Wharton School. He saw no relation between environmental deterioiration and business. The author agreed, that dean did fail to see a relation, which made discussion more difficult.  Forty years later the work was republished as "Too Early, Too Late, Now what?"   A new chapter on this evolution will appear in Europe late this year which goes deeper into why its a human thing, not restricted to some types.  That thesis is:  "Short-term gain, Long-term pain."  Its a very old story about a species with seroius limitations in its great ability to think.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] You seem to be making a habit of referring back to the same old work (or similar), in nearly every comment you make.

      In your very first comment here, you were warned that this is not a forum for you to do nothing but promote your book. Disguising such promotion by avoiding mentioning that it is your own work - if that is what you are doing - is not appropriate.

      Also note that the Comments Policy advises against excessive repetition.

      Discussion is welcome, but treating this site as a free source of self-promotion is not.

       

4746. plincoln24 at 20:05 PM on 4 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part I
      

      The moderator is free to delete my three posts if the moderator finds it useful. I recommend it, because it is otherwise a waste of time for people to read them.

      Moderator Response:

      [BL] Others may make the same mistake, so we'll let them learn from you. :-)

4747. plincoln24 at 20:04 PM on 4 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part I
      

      Oh, now I see it. They are footnotes. Not references to sources. I wrote to early for my own good.

4748. plincoln24 at 19:51 PM on 4 November 2021
      The Keeling Curve: Part I
      

      The above article uses source references 1,2,3 etc. But I have been unable to find the sources these refer to. Am I missing something or did the author forget these?

4749. HK at 06:58 AM on 4 November 2021
      It's the sun
      

      Chuck #1289:

      Your stove analogy fails because the oceans are not cooling. If anything, their warming seems to have accelerated over the last few decades.
      Here's the temperature anomaly of the upper 100 metres:

      

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

      And here's the change of heat content in the upper 2000 metres:

      

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

      The Sun has cooled, but the atmosphere and the oceans keep warming. The only explanation making sense is that the Earth gives off less heat to space.

4750. Jim Eager at 07:14 AM on 3 November 2021
      SkS Analogy 25 - Emissions vs Accumulation
      

      Are you deliberately missing the point? It has nothing to do with the radiative forcing of H2O, it has to do with the fact that you can not directly increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere without first warming the atmosphere, otherwise the added H2O will simply condense out.

      Thought experiment: Remove all other greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere except water vapour. What will happen?

      The greenhouse effect will be reduced, cooling the surface and atmosphere. As a result the atmosphere will be able to hold less water vapour, so it, too, will be reduced by condensation and precipitation, thereby further reducing the greenhouse effect. As a result the atmosphere will be able to hold even less H2O. And so on. Pretty soon this will effect surface albedo as the precipitated water freezes into snow and ice, which will reflect more sunlight and reduce temperature still further.

      The point is you can not directly increase H2O, which means it can not be a driver of greenhouse warming, only contribute to it as a feedback.

      As for referring to Wikipedia as an authority on anything, you're joking, right?

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