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Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Philippe Chantreau at 03:40 AM on 11 January, 2025

I also noted an inconsistency between posts #365 and 367 above:

In # 365, the following quote from Wikipedia is cited: "France's nuclear reactors comprise 90 per cent of EDFs capacity and so they are used in load-following mode and some reactors close at weekends because there is no market for the electricity."

In # 367, this comes back as: "the plants shut down during the highest demand periods during the summer and on weekends. Fossil fuels make up what nuclear fails to generate." That would be the very opposite of what the previous quote says: not following the load.

The reason why some plants are tuned down and/or taken off line is indeed the one in #367, i.e. they are used in load following mode. They are not "shut down" during the highest demand period, they are ramped up, that much is clearly visible in the data. As I have pointed before, the eCO2mix data shows that peak demand is, in the vast majority of cases, associated with peak nuclear production.

Furthermore, fossil fuel use in the generation mix in France is very limited. Oil and coal are almost negligible. Gas is marginal and, to my knowledge, used because of its very fast reaction time. Wind is very well developed: on the morning of January 1st, gas was at 1.8GW, when total wind production was close to 19GW (more than 10 times higher). Compare that to Texas, a leader in the US for wind electricity, where production peaks around 10GW on windy summer days.

Looking at the end of December and the beginning of January so far, I see that the share of gas is lower than wind, and the total amount exported is greater than the share of gas. Looking at longer periods, it is apparent that the overall share of wind power over time is larger than gas. France certainly can't be accused of being a bad actor in limiting the carbon emissions of electricity production in Europe. The European grid is highly interconnected and synchronous (except for the UK), even extending into North Africa; there are a lot of international factors involved in France's total production and level of export. I am skeptical of the claim that the exploitation of their nuclear plants is uneconomical.

In any case, achieving a carbon intensity per kWh that is a factor of 10 lower than neighboring countries, while retaining affordable rates is not a bad result. Despite high amounts of fuels used for road transportation, France has per capita CO2 emissions lower than Denmark, Germany, Finland or Italy. Sweden does better but, like Norway or Quebec, they are in a very privileged position for hydro generation; still, about 30% of their production is from nuclear.

That being said, the long term future needs serious planning. France's existing nuclear power plants can not last for ever. Much has been said of the outages of 2021/22. Some of it was valid, and some of it was spin. One could say that they showed a safety system that works, a grid resilient enough to withstand the outages, and problems that could be detected and solved.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the 30-50 year horizon demands solutions. I don't know that renewables can be increased to the 50+GW they would have to produce. That is way above my pay grade.

Climate Adam: Can we really suck up Carbon Dioxide?

One Planet Only Forever at 06:47 AM on 23 May, 2024

An extreme example of carbon dioxide removal greenwashing is the marketing of the glory of the Pathways Alliance plans to make Alberta oil sands production 'Net-zero by 2050' (see here for their self promotion details).

As mentioned in Climate Adam's video, and the earlier CCS video he mentions (a link at the end of this Climate Adam video), CCS of oil sands operations will only keep part of the ghg impacts of the operations from entering the atmosphere, with risk of leaks of the stuff thought to have been captured and stored. In particular, any methane emissions are not captured for storage.

So, to be 'net-zero' the Pathways Alliance will have to divert (consume) some of the 'real carbon removal activity' that will almost certainly be necessary to bring total human impacts back down to 1.5 C levels (human impacts are expected to exceed the globally agreed 1.5 C level).

Pathways Alliance action, if they get subsidized to the degree they want and actually do something to reduce carbon emissions, would improve Canada's Climate Actions. But the most recent Climate Action Tracker evaluation of Canada linked here (pointed to by prove we are smart in this comment on another SkS item) is "Highly Insufficient" significantly due to leadership being compromised by being interested in profiting more from being more harmful and evading the costs of being less harmful. The Pathways Alliance improvement may only move Canada to "Insufficient" Climate Action.

It appears the (Canadian, Alberta, oil sands investors) hope is that some fossil fuel use will be globally agreed to be needed after 2050 to exclusively provide essential assistance for the least fortunate to live basic decent lives. And they (Canada, Alberta and oil sands investors), being net-zero suppliers by then, should be globally supported to be the chosen suppliers.

Harmful actions can only be justified if the harm is required to provide essential life assistance to the less fortunate (and it would be unacceptable for anyone to profit from providing that assistance - it should be not-for-profit).

That raises many questions including:

Will Canada, Alberta and oil sands investors all agree to be Net-zero-profit-takers after 2050?

And will they have taken action and paid what it costs to minimize the need to divert 'real carbon removal actions' to offset their remaining impacts (diversion required so they can claim to be 'net-zero' suppliers of a harmful product)?

And will they agree by 2050 that the only benefit from their 'net-zero product that will produce harmful impacts when used as expected' is to be obtained by the least fortunate (refusing to export it to questionable buyers)?

The science isn't settled

TWFA at 13:36 PM on 9 May, 2024

Of course I looked at Fig. 1... the ebb point in curve is at 1750, clearly rising by 1800 and well on the way by 1850.

I just want to know why, if we are the ones causing all this, that it began long before we were emitting measurable amounts of CO2, which was around 1890. Do I need to show you a chart of sea levels vs emissions?

Time series of sea level anomalies (blue) Jevrejeva et al. (2014).
Million tons of carbon emitted from burning fossil fuels from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC 2014)

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet at 04:26 AM on 2 February, 2024

It is difficult to reply to a post filled with so many half-truths and mistakes. All your claims have been shown to be false upthread.

1) As you pointed out, Jacobson and hundreds of other researchers have shown that an all renewable energy system (primarily wind and solar) can support the entire economy. It will cost trillions of dollars less than fossil fuels and save millions of lives. Your mentioning a few days with low wind is simply fake news. Since you provide no links to support your wild claims I will not link any either. There are several countries that generate essentially all of their electricity using renewables, a technology that has only been installed widely for less than10 years. France had to purchase a boatload of expensive electricity from its neighbors during the electricity crisis because their reactors failed. I note that no energy researchers support using nuclear power as the primary energy to power the world. Few or no researchers support using even a small amount of new nuclear energy in the future.

2) Your claim that nuclear power "is already larger than wind and solar combined" is deliberately false. According to Our World in Data, in 2021 wind and solar produced 2900 TWH of electricity and in 2022 wind and solar produced 3422 TWH of power world wide. That will increase by at least 15% in 2023. In 2021 nuclear produced 2750 TWH of power and in 2022 nuclear power produced only 2632 TWH of power. The amount of power produced by nuclear has not increased significantly for over 20 years. It is unlikely that the amount of nuclear power will increase for at least 10 years and it is more likely to decrease substantially as old reactors are shut down.

3) Why would a sane person suggest pouring more public money into a failed technology like nuclear? The "new" modular reactor proposals are old designs that were rejected in the 1950's and 1960's as uneconomic or simply too difficlut ot build.

4) Projections of 2024 energy use are that renewable energy will be built at a fast enough rate to reduce world wide carbon dioxide emissions. After 70 years nuclear provides less than 4% of all energy in the world and has not helped reduce carbon emissions for over 20 years. I note that 70% of primary power produced by nuclear is wasted heating the surroundings versus essentially zero waste heat using renewables.

5) Your claim work on using renewables for "transport, steel and fertilisers has hardly even begun" is simply false. Nuclear has not done anything to address these technologies. I, and millions of other people, already drive an electric car. More electric cars are sold every year. Electric trains are widespread. Electric heavy trucks are being manufactured. It is easy to make ammonia fertilizer from renewable energy. Steel is being made with electric furnaces and using green hydrogen. As more and more renewable energy is built it will be used for those purposes since renewable energy is cheaper than fosil fuels. Since renewable energy has only been the cheapest energy for about 5 years there has not yet been time to build out a completely new power system yet. After 70 years nuclear cannot even keep up with its current production as old reactors are retired.

6) Nuclear power in France was down by 50% last year. At all times in a system with nuclear power they require at least enough spinning reserve to cover for the sudden shut down of the reactors because nuclear reactors are prone to unplanned shutdowns at any time. This is not needed for renewables since they do not shut down with no notice. Ways to control for down transmission lines are still required.

7) Nuclear is a failed technology. It is too expensive and takes way too long to build. Due to economies of scale, smaller, modular reactors will be more expensive than big reactors that are already too expensive to compete with renewable energy. Since reactors take so long to build, the entire electrical system will be renewable before new nuclear designs are ready to be widely built. I do not even need to mention that there is not enough uranium in the world to power more than 5% of all power, an insignificant amount.

Whenever I examine nuclear supporters claims closely I find that they are not supported by the data.

Nuclear is not economic, takes too long to build and there are not enough rare minerals.

I drove 6,000 miles in an EV. Here’s what I learned

prove we are smart at 23:49 PM on 28 December, 2023

Ok, I believe in keeping an open mind with most things these days.

RH@2, I agree, it wasn't a "review". You know, I will often just click on various parts of a video, to be sure I have the right tone of it- judging a book by its cover,I learnt long ago.

Nigelj@3 Sorry you only lasted 4minutes longer, I suppose that was a lot considering you said " I already know the downsides of EVs, and I doubt some motor repair mechanic will add anything."

By the way, the "you" in my moniker is for any replies I read on this blog site- I have learnt a lot following yourself and others replying to many with inaccurate info.

I reckon at least you got the patronising, piss-taking, swearing and taking ages to get to point right with JC If you could have toughed it out,( I'm sure against your better judgement) we might have agreed with some of his observations and disagreed..

I"m not agaist EV cars, far from it but a smart person can check out many sources of info and recheck again from others to get the big picture and not a green washed fervour towards the complicated issue of EV cars.evse.com.au/blog/how-much-carbon-dioxide-does-an-internal-combustion-hybrid-and-electric-car-emit/

"We need more renewable wholesale electric to support clean electric cars. This is where some detractors have valid points when they argue that electric cars are shifting the problem."www.energy.gov.au/energy-data/australian-energy-statistics/electricity-generation

Every electric car is forcing these electricity generators to work harder. In Australia thats 68% worth from fossil fuels. There is a lot to do and time is running out-( a familiar comment) for us as we are already behind the 8 ball. www.drive.com.au/news/electric-car-battery-recycling-australia-environmental-harm/

These and a few other issues are mentioned by our smart arse mate Mr Codogan-don't ask him about EV fires.. In truth, I believe hybred cars are better during this transition, ask Mitsubishi and Toyota-at least for Australia,www.drive.com.au/news/electric-vehicles-worse-for-environment-than-petrol-cars-report/

You wrote.."There is a group of people on the hard left of politics and academia who dislike EVs (and sometimes wind and solar power) because they are the product of the capitalist society and industrial society and because rich people drive them and profit from their manufacture. You see this in internet discussions sometimes.

While unrestrained greed and laissez faire capitalism is not my thing, their reasoning seems shallow and emotive. It is a fallacy of perfectionism - where a perfect, implausible socio- economic utopia is prioritised, and more realistic attainable compromise solutions are discarded."

Your talking to a guy who has worn many hats, and speaks simply because of all the fake people and their entitled behavior, here is another one, see if you can stomach the guy and tell me are his facts correct?..www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiRzpKWshwU

Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

michael sweet at 23:10 PM on 28 December, 2023

OPOF:

In addition to the flaws you discuss about the Stratos plant, as you described in post 16 it is "being built in the midst of oil fields" The carbon will not be stored, it will be used to extract more oil from the ground!!!

Oil companies are not storing carbon when they are using it to extract more oil, the carbon dioxide comes back out of the ground with the oil. This is a completely false story, Occidental fooled the reporter. I guess that you could claim that Occidental is showing how to air capture the carbon.

We will have to wait until the plant is built to evaluate how much energy it takes to capture the carbon and at what cost. My bet is that it will be too expensive and take too much energy, but that is simply speculation at this time.

Even if you thought that using the carbon to extract more oil is storing it, as Nigelj pointed out, the number of plants needed to make a dent in carbon pollution is enormous and the number of plants being built is very small. The scale of extraction plants is way too small to make any significant difference.

Who will pay for carbon that is permanently stored? Not the fossil fuel industry.

Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

One Planet Only Forever at 07:51 AM on 28 December, 2023

Regarding nigelj's @1 astute point about the scale of the direct air carbon capture challenge:

The NPR article I pointed to in my comment @14 is about Occidental Petroleum's Stratos carbon capture plant which will be 0.5 Mt/year. The article introduces the plant as follows:

"The Stratos plant — being built in the midst of oil fields — is playing a key role in scaling up the technology, which is not fully proven yet. Once it's up and running, the billion-dollar facility will be 100 times bigger than any direct air capture plant ever built — and yet, even if it works perfectly, it will take a year to remove less than 10 minutes' worth of global emissions."

Later in the article it provides more details about the scale of the global challenge, with my inserts in [square brackets]:

"Some climate advocates agree that Oxy's doing something extraordinary for the planet. Others, however, are raising alarms about why.

The International Energy Agency calculates that the world needs to remove 80 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year through direct air capture by 2030, and more than 1 billion metric tons per year by 2050, to meet the world's goal of holding warming beneath 1.5 degrees Celsius.

That assumes the world also cuts emissions sharply and restores vast expanses of forests and wetlands, which also remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Getting to that scenario would require about a thousand giant direct air capture plants twice the size of Stratos, each capturing a million metric tons per year

But the slower the world acts [to reduce fossil fuel use], the bigger the numbers get. [DAC used to offset 'unnecessary', but popular and profitable, climate impacts develops the need for even more 'unnecessary' DAC]

The IEA described one possible future where cutting emissions more slowly would mean that the world would need to capture more than 3.3 billion metric tons per year from the atmosphere. Some projections call for much more than that."

And near the end the following statement is made:

"The Stratos plant may be the biggest of its kind, but even when run perfectly, it would end up taking a full year to capture what the world releases in 7 1/2 minutes today [the 'less than 10 minutes' bit].

Pulling carbon dioxide out of the sky the way Oxy plans to do also requires enormous quantities of energy.

And carbon removal has simply never been done at the scale Oxy envisions. In a report this fall, the International Energy Agency warned that relying on this kind of technology to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is unacceptably risky because if technologies fail to deliver, there's no backup option.

"Removing carbon from the atmosphere is costly and uncertain," Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, said this fall. "We must do everything possible to stop putting it there in the first place.""

Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

One Planet Only Forever at 14:37 PM on 18 December, 2023

michael sweet,

I agree that focusing on building the renewable energy systems, along with reducing unnecessary ‘luxury’ ghg emissions, is the most rewarding action, from the perspective of the future of humanity. It is far better to do that than build partial fixes like Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) in an attempt to make ‘parts of unsustainable damaging systems – like the fossil fuel systems – appear to be ‘helping to achieve’ global net-zero.

In addition to wasting effort attempting to prolong an unsustainable damaging developed system with CCUS, getting those parts of the fossil fuel system to appear to be net-zero will require significant amounts of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR).

A serious concern is the use of CDR to make those parts of the ‘system that is still, all things considered, very damaging’ appear to be excusable/acceptable. The article I linked to in my comment @3 explains things well in the following quote from the part titled A CDR thesis:

CDR is a limited resource [Citation14]. For-profit goals inherently prioritize the activities for which some entity will pay the most, which are likely disproportionately related to compensatory removals in high wealth contexts. Allocation of more CDR to compensatory functions constrains availability for drawdown while increasing overall demand for CDR and CDR scaling. These incentives create a structural bias toward providing offsets to high-wealth emitters who can provide ongoing revenue streams, and away from offsets for low-wealth emitters or remedial drawdown activities. In effect, unconstrained for-profit governance of CDR allows for luxury consumption to colonize [and tragically abuse] an emergent global commons.

Another example of plans, not started to be built, for a major CCUS operation with an eventual demand to unnecessarily consume CDR resources is the action plans of the Alberta oil sands operators in Pathways Alliance. Refer to this linked CBC News article “Oilsands giants continue work on proposed $16.5B carbon capture project, despite lingering questions”

Alberta already has some CCUS, similar to the Middle East capture of CO2 and its use to produce more oil or gas. But a major collective CCUS project, subsidized by public funding, is the first part of the Pathways Alliance plan to be able to claim to be ‘net-zero’ producers of exported fossil fuels by 2050.

By 2050 there will hopefully be a very small market for exported fossil fuels. And that fossil fuel use would hopefully be restricted to assisting people who live less than basic decent lives.

The Alberta oil sands operators, with the support of government in Alberta and Canada, plan to compete to be exporting 5 million bpd or more in 2050 and beyond (being an exporter of choice). Other regions with already discovered exportable fossil fuel resources can be expected to do the same. Who would give up on such a potentially lucrative opportunity? And they will all potentially end up fighting to be among the few who end up with the least ‘stranded fossil fuel reserves’. Tragically, that marketplace for-profit competition to be the biggest winner will also consume massive effort and resources, public and private, to build CCUS facilities that will also end up ‘stranded’.

If, instead of being assisted to build CCUS, they were required to build DAC facilities, those DAC facilities could continue to be beneficial after the need for ‘dead-end fossil fuel extraction for export’ is substantially ‘transitioned away from’ (by 2050).

Global leadership focusing on rapidly building the transition away from fossil fuels, along with reducing unnecessary energy demand, will reduce the unnecessarily tragic damage being done to the global commons by making the ‘deservedly tragic future’ of all the ‘pursuers of maximum benefit from fossil fuels’ harder to deny.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

MA Rodger at 22:07 PM on 18 October, 2023

I'm reluctant to engage with a commenter that peppers a comment thread at a rate of one every couple of hours for almost two full days without establishing some form of understanding as to their purpose. But here goes...

Rabelt @46,

The OP does not claim to show that "emission from FF are responsible" for changing levels of atmospheric CO2. It is providing an explanation of "how measurements of changing isotopic ratios are described" and this in regard to the atmospheric ¹³C:¹²C ratio.

This ratio is shown in the OP fig3 waggling over a whole millennium in a very similar way to the level of atmospheric CO2. CO2 levels go up/down and the ¹³C:¹²C ratio goes down/up. Such a remarkable correlation tells us (although this is beyond the message of the OP) that the source (and sink) responsible for the changing CO2 levels has a ¹³C:¹²C ratio far lower than the atmosphere. Thus that the oceans cannot be the source/sink of that extra carbon waggling the atmospheric CO2 levels.

The source of this rogue CO2 messing up the atmosphere is thus plants, either by their direct destruction or indirectly via fossil fuels which retain the low ¹³C:¹²C ratio.

(The middle section of your comment @46 mentions "this change" but does not make entirely plain whether you refer to the "changes in discourse" or the "changes in Delta C13". So, if it is in any way relevant, it is not clear which you don't accept.)

Your comment make two final assertions which I find a little odd. You suggest annual and cumulative CO2 emissions 1750-1900 do not explain the changing atmospheric CO2 levels, the latter being "too small". Further you suggest a mismatch in the AtmosCO2:Delta C13 ratio "the 1950s-2010s periods."

The Global Carbon Project is always a good go-to source for annual carbon emissions. Although their historic LUC data only runs back to 1850, it is plain from their various source-sink numbers that the Atmospheric Fraction does not show emissions that are "too small" prior to 1850. You may have sight of other numbers which show it different and if so you do need to explain such 'other numbers' properly. (I note @34 you put the CO2 emissions for 1850 = 0.2Gt_(CO2). This is presumably ignoring the LUC emissions which would increase the full 1850 emissions to 2.6Gt_(CO2) using the Global Carbon Project numbers.)

It is also not clear what you are considering with this 1950s-2010s mismatch which you perceive between accelerating CO2 levels and steadily decreasing Delta C13 levels. If it is the OP's Fig 3 (& I don't see a problem there), perhaps a sight of the original may help as it shows the data points without the assumed solid δ¹³C trace.

Delta13C graph - no assumed trace

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 04:38 AM on 28 September, 2023

Sysop, Thank you for allowing this conversation with scaddenp and myself to continue.

1562 scaddenp
You said "What I am asking is whether you can remember what switched you into looking for sites like CO2Science or temperature.global? Was it just disbelief about trace gases or were there other considerations?"

I've been thinking about an answer for you.
I started looking into "global warming" back in the mid 2000s, 25 years ago,
I think with this site https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html.
Many other places and books since then.
I find a lot, 1000s or more, of scientists that disagree with AGW.
One is Nasif Nahle who has calculated the emissivity of CO2 at less than .003 and and says that it doesn't absorb or emit much if any IR. You can see his calculations at https://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/03/total-emissivity-of-the-earth-and-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/
Then there is the Club Of Rome, a bunch of rich elitists that think they know best for the rest of us. Back in 1968-1974 they decided they needed a scare tactic to get people to reduce births, thus reducing the population of the earth and the resources used by them. They settled on AGW because CO2 is emitted when fossil fuels are burned. Reduce the available energy and you will reduce the birth rate.
The U.N. IPCC was not charged with finding out what makes the climate change but rather how to pin it on human causes. See https://shalemag.com/manmade-global-warming-the-story-the-reality/ and https://principia-scientific.com/the-club-of-rome-and-rise-of-predictive-modelling-mafia/
UN’s Top Climate Official: Goal Is To ‘Intentionally Transform the Economic Development Model’
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
You see, the goal was not to save us all from overheating the planet or acidifying the oceans. The goal was to scare everyone into giving up cheap fossil fuels.
I don't know what the goal of you and your colleagues at Skeptical Science is but I do know you can create logic and equations to describe anything, so I remain skeptical of your site.
Now you know where I'm coming from. See www.ourwoods.org.
Cheers

How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

daveburton at 01:45 AM on 14 July, 2023

Eclectic wrote, "Daveburton @22 ~ Please explain more of your first chart [ IPCC's decadal Carbon Flux Comparison 1980-2019 ]. The natural sink flux figures… show a rather steady proportionality to the total carbon emissions."

Glad to. Any two things which steadily increase are thereby correlated. There's only a possibility that the relationship might be causal if there's a possible mechanism for such causality.

There's no possible mechanism by which the rate at which CO2 emerges from chimneys could govern the rate at which CO2 is taken up by trees & absorbed by the oceans, or vice-versa, so the relationship cannot be causal — just as this famous relationship is not causal:

does cheese consumption cause death by bedsheet entanglement?

Eclectic wrote, "The land sink shows about 30-35% of total emissions, while the sum of land & ocean remains around 55-60%."

Yes, I usually say "about half," as in, "If our CO2 emissions were cut by more than about half then the atmospheric CO2 level would be falling, rather than rising."

It is important to recognize that the relationship is merely coincidental, not causal.

Eclectic wrote, "as the decades progress, the natural carbon sink flux in absolute terms rises with the rising emissions ~ but does not show a proportional increase."

The rate at which natural processes, such as ocean uptake, uptake by trees and soil ("greening"), and rock weathering, remove CO2 from the air, is affected in minor ways by many factors, but in a major way by only one: the current amount of CO2 in the air.

Our CO2 emission rate does not and cannot affect the natural removal rate, except indirectly, in the long term, by being one of the most important factors which affect the amount of CO2 in the air.

Eclectic wrote, "looking back in time ~ as the atmospheric CO2 level decreases, the size of the natural sink flux decreases also."

That is correct. It will also be correct looking forward in time, when CO2 levels are falling, someday.

Eclectic wrote, "this directly contradicts your hypothesis of 'if emissions were halved ... atmospheric CO2 level would plateau.'"

If you'll allow me to use "halved" as a shorthand for "reduced to the point at which emissions merely equal current natural removals, rather than exceed them," then those two statements are both correct, and perfectly consistent. It's pCO2 (level), not the rate of CO2 emissions, which (mostly) governs the rates of all the natural CO2 removal from the atmosphere.

Of course there are also minor factors which affect the removal rates. For instance, as we've already discussed, a 1°C rise in water temperature slows ocean uptake of CO2 by roughly 3%. Conversely, a rise in air temperature accelerates CO2 removal by rock weathering. (Sorry, I don't have a quantification of that.) But the main factor which controls the rate of CO2 removals is pCO2.

Eclectic wrote, "While the nutritive components of some food crops may reduce slightly as CO2 rises…"

Oh boy, another rabbit hole! That's the Loladze/Myers "nutrition scare."

It is of little consequence. That should be obvious if you consider that crops grown in commercial greenhouses with CO2 levels as high as 1500 ppmv are as nutritious as crops grown outdoors with only 30% as much CO2.

≥1500 ppmv CO2 is optimal for most crops. That's why commercial greenhouses typically use CO2 generators to raise daytime CO2 concentration to well above 1000 ppmv. It is expensive, but they go to that expense because elevated CO2 (eCO2) makes crops much healthier and more productive. (They don't typically supplement CO2 at night unless using grow-lamps, because plants can't use the extra CO2 without light.)

If elevating CO2 by >1000 ppmv doesn't cause crops to be less nutritious, then elevating CO2 by only 140 ppmv obviously doesn't, either.

Better crops yields, due to eCO2 or any other reason, can cause lower levels (but not lower total amounts) of nutrients which are in short supply in the soil. But that doesn't happen to a significant extent when agricultural best practices are employed.

I had an impromptu online debate about the nutrition scare with its most prominent promoter, mathematician Irakli Loladze, in the comments on a Quora answer. If you're not a Quora member you can't read it there, so I saved a copy here. He acknowledged to me that food grown in greenhouses at elevated CO2 levels is as nutritious as food grown outdoors.

Faster-growing, more productive crops require more nutrients per acre, but not more nutrients per unit of production.

Inadequate nitrogen fertilization reduces protein production relative to carbohydrate production, because proteins contain nitrogen, but carbohydrates don't. Likewise, low levels of iron or zinc in soils cause lower levels of those minerals in some crops. So, it is possible, by flouting well-established best agricultural practices, to contrive circumstances under which eCO2, or anything else which improves crop yields, causes reduced levels of protein or micronutrients in crops.

But farmers know that the more productive crops are, the more nutrients they need, per acre. Competent farmers fertilize accordingly.

Or, for nitrogen, they may plant nitrogen-fixing legumes — which benefit greatly from extra CO2.

If you don’t fertilize according to the needs of your crops, negative consequences may include reductions in protein and/or micronutrient levels in the resulting crops. The cause of such reductions isn't eCO2s, it's poor agricultural practices.

The nutrient scare is an attempt to put a negative "spin" on the most important benefit of eCO2: that it improves crop yields.

Eclectic wrote, "it is (as you state) beyond argument that higher CO2 benefits overall crop yield & plant mass."

That's correct. Moreover, agronomy studies show that for most crops the effect is highly linear as CO2 levels rise, until above about 1000 ppmv (which is far higher than we could ever hope to drive outdoor CO2 levels by burning fossil fuels). That linearity is obvious in the green (C3) trace, here:

CO2 vs plant growth, C3 & C4

That improvement is one of several major reasons that catastropic famines are fading from living memory.

If you're too young to remember huge, catastrophic famines, count yourself blessed. Through all of human history, until very recently, famine was one of the great scourges of mankind, the "Third Horseman of the Apocalypse." But no more. This is a miracle!

https://ourworldindata.org/famines

Ending famine is a VERY Big Deal, comparable to ending war and disease. Compare:

● Covid-19 killed 0.1% of world population.
● 1918 flu pandemic killed about 2%.
● WWII killed 2.7%.
● The near-global drought and famine of 1876-78 killed about 3.7% of the world population.

Eclectic wrote, "other CO2/AGW concomitant effects of increased droughts /floods /heat-waves can be harmful to crop yields in open-field agriculture. [And especially so for the staple crop of maize.]"

Well, let's examine those one at a time.

Heat-waves. Overall, temperature extremes are not worsened by the warming trend. Heat waves are slightly worsened, but by less than cold snaps are mitigated. That's because, thanks to "Arctic amplification," warming is disproportionately at chilly high latitudes, and it is greatest at night and in winter. The tropics warm less, which is nice, because they're warm enough already.

1°C is about the temperature change you get from a 500 foot elevation change. (That's calculated from an average lapse rate of 6.5 °C/km.)

On average, 1°C is similar in effect to a latitude change of about sixty miles, as you can see by looking at an agricultural growing zone map. Here's one, from the Arbor Day Foundation:

From eyeballing the map, you can see that 1°C (1.8°F) = about 50-70 miles latitude change.

James Hansen and his colleagues reported a similar figure: "A warming of 0.5°C... implies typically a poleward shift of isotherms by 50 to 75 km..."

1°C is less than the hysteresis ("dead zone") in your home thermostat, which is the amount that your indoor temperatures go up and down, all day long, without you even noticing.

In the American Midwest, farmers can fully compensate for 1°C of climate change by adjusting planting dates by about six days.
Des Moines temperature by month

Floods. Theoretically, by accelerating the water cycle, climate change could increase the frequency or severity of floods. But the effect is too slight to be noticeable. AR6 says no change in global flood frequency is detectable:

AR6 on floods

Droughts. Droughts have not worsened. In fact, the global drought trend is slightly down. Here's a study:

Hao et al. (2014). Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system. Sci Data 1(140001). doi:10.1038/sdata.2014.1

Here's the U.S. drought trend (the bottom/orange side of the graph):
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/uspa/wet-dry/0

U.S. very wet and very dry

Not only does climate change not worsen droughts, it has long been settled science that eCO2 improves plants' water use efficiency (WUE) and drought resilience, by improving CO2 stomatal conductance relative to transpiration. So eCO2 is especially beneficial in arid regions, and for crops which are under drought stress.

Maize (corn) has been very heavily studied. Even though it is a C4 grass, it benefits greatly from elevated CO2, especially under drought stress. Here's a study (one of many):

Chun et al. (2011). Effect of elevated carbon dioxide and water stress on gas exchange and water use efficiency in corn. Agric For Meteorol 151(3), pp 378-384, ISSN 0168-1923. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2010.11.015.

EXCERPT:
"There have been many studies on the interaction of CO2 and water on plant growth. Under elevated CO2, less water is used to produce each unit of dry matter by reducing stomatal conductance."

Here's a similar study about wheat:

Fitzgerald GJ, et al. (2016) Elevated atmospheric [CO2] can dramatically increase wheat yields in semi-arid environments and buffer against heat waves. Glob Chang Biol. 22(6):2269-84. doi:10.1111/gcb.13263.

However, I agree with you that putting a monetary value on the benefits of CO2 for crops is difficult. In part that's because the price of food soars when it's in short supply, and plummets when it's plentiful. So, for example, if we were to attribute, say, 15% of current crop yields to CO2 fertilization & CO2 drought mitigation, and value that 15% using current crop prices, we would be underestimating the true value, because absent that 15% boost the prices would have been much higher.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #26 2023

One Planet Only Forever at 06:21 AM on 3 July, 2023

The pessimism of people like Prove We Are Smart is justified. But I do not agree that the end of developed human civilization is inevitable due to the current, and historical, success of pursuers of benefit from harmful unsustainable developments and the related misunderstandings and lack of awareness.

There is a robust diversity of evidence indicating that ethical consideration, the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of what is harmful and a commitment to limit harm done and repair damage caused, is not effectively governing the actions of all people, especially not the most powerful and influential. But that could be corrected.

It will be interesting to see how the “Mass Extinctions and Their Relationship With Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration: Implications for Earth's Future” evaluation stands up, and is responded to. In addition to identifying that, by itself, increased CO2 levels are a serious problem that has already caused measurable damage, it essentially establishes that the only helpful climate change related geoengineering is actions that effectively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. See the following Quote:

Abstract (last part)
...Today's atmospheric CO2 concentration, ∼421 parts per million by volume (ppmv), corresponds in the most recent marine fossil record to a biodiversity loss of 6.39%, implying that contemporary anthropogenic CO2 emissions are killing ocean life now. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that unabated fossil fuel use could elevate atmospheric CO2 concentration to 800 ppmv by 2100, approaching the 870 ppmv mean concentration of the last 19 natural extinction events. Reversing this first global anthropogenic mass extinction requires reducing net anthropogenic CO2 emissions to zero, optimally by 2% per year starting immediately.

Key Points
• Past mass extinctions are correlated with atmospheric CO2 concentration, but not with long-term temperature nor radiative forcing by CO2
• Present CO2 concentration is associated in the fossil record with a 6.39% genus loss, implying current human destruction of biodiversity
• Future anthropogenic mass extinction can be stopped only by cutting human emissions of CO2 to zero, optimally by 2% per year starting now.

The statement that “...cutting human emissions of CO2 to zero, optimally by 2% per year starting now.” is ethically questionable. The ethical objective would be a quicker reduction, more sooner, while maintaining the development of sustainable improvements for the portion of humanity that is not living at least a basic decent life. And the first step of the ‘optimal transition’ would be a ‘big step’ of very rapidly ending unnecessary activities that cause increased CO2 levels, even if doing that would reduce developed perceptions of ‘success or superiority’ for many people.

In the bigger picture, the future of humanity, the concern is human actions that reduce the magnitude of the biodiversity of life, even if extinctions are not the result. And reduction of biodiversity happens due to many other human activities, not just fossil fuel use. Also, there are many other impacts of human fossil fuel activity that negatively impact biodiversity. Increased CO2 levels are not the only fossil fuel related problem. However, as the research report indicates, other actions to protect biodiversity are meaningless if action is not taken to limit the increase of CO2 levels.

The bigger picture bottom line is the need to reduce the harmful impacts of fossil fuel use and repair damage done in parallel with rapidly ended the activity. Also, the difficult challenge we face today due to the lack of responsible harm reduction through the past 30 years indicates that limiting the damage done by fossil fuel impacts will need to happen much faster than democratic free market action will ‘choose to end it and repair the damage done’. One established certainty is that removal of CO2 will be required to minimize and repair the damage done.

Currently developed methods for CO2 removal from the atmosphere, and measures to reduce CO2 releases from fossil fuel burning while the activity is being rapidly ended, will need to be implemented even if they are not considered to be ‘actions that are economically preferred today’.

The challenge is getting ‘economically motivated people (people who want to personally benefit from economic activity)’ to admit that the developed systems have a history of motivating the development of damaging results (because more harmful action can be quicker, easier and cheaper). Those unsustainable developments can be very hard to correct, especially if the harmful development is popular among, or profitable for, a powerful and influential portion of global humanity that has little interest in correcting their developed perceptions of superiority relative to others.

I am optimistic about the future of humanity (otherwise there is no ethical purpose). But I am very pessimistic about the rate of success humanity will have in efforts to govern/limit the damage done by seemingly insatiable pursuers of ‘increased perceptions of status’.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #50 2022

peterklein at 07:12 AM on 16 December, 2022

I mostly became mostly aware of the climate and global warming issue about the time that Al Gore began beating the drum (even while he continued to fly globally in his private jet). Since then, I've read about climate change and climate modeling from many sources, including ones taking the position that ‘it is not a question if it is a big-time issue, but what to do about it now, ASAP?’.

In the past few weeks, it appeared to me there has been a of articles, issued reports, and federal government activity, including recently approved legislation, related to this topic. While it obviously has been one of the major global topics for the past 3+ decades, the amount of public domain ‘heightened activity’ seems (to me) to come in waves every 4-6 months. That said, I decided to write on the topic based on what I learned and observed over time from articles, research reports, and TV/newspaper interviews.

There clearly are folks, associations, formal and informal groups, and even governments on both sides of the topic (issue). I also have seen over the decades how the need for and the flow of money sometimes (many times?) taints the results of what appear to be ‘expert-driven and expert-executed’ quantitative research. For example, in medical research some of the top 5% of researchers have been found altering their data and conclusions because of the source of their research funding, peer ‘industry’ pressure and/or pressure from senior academic administrators.

Many climate and weather-related articles state that 95+% of researchers agree on major climate changes; however (at least to me) many appear to disagree on the short-medium-longer term implications and timeframes.

What I conclude (as of now)
1. This as a very complex subject about which few experts have been correct.
2. We are learning more and more every day about this subject, and most of what we learn suggests that what we thought we knew isn't really correct or at least as perfectly accurate as many believe.
3. The U.S. alone cannot solve whatever problem exists. If we want to do something constructive, build lots of nuclear power plants ASAP (more on that to follow)!
4. Any rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels will devastate many economies, especially those like China, India, Africa and most of Asia. Interestingly, the U.S. can probably survive a 3 or 4% reduction in carbon footprint annually over the next 15 years better than almost any country in the world, but this requires the aforementioned construction of multiple nuclear electrical generating facilities. In the rest of the world, especially the developing world, their economies will crash, and famine would ensue; not a pretty picture.
5. I am NOT a reflexive “climate denier” but rather a real-time skeptic that humans will be rendered into bacon crisps sometime in the next 50, 100 or 500+ years!
6. One reason I'm not nearly as concerned as others is my belief in the concept of ‘progress’. Look at what we accomplished as a society over the last century, over the last 50, 10, 5 and 3 years (e.g., Moore’s Law is the observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles about every two years!). It is easy to conclude that we will develop better storage batteries and better, more efficient electrical grids that will reduce our carbon footprint. I'm not so sure about China, India and the developing world!
7. So, don't put me down as a climate denier even though I do not believe that the climate is rapidly deteriorating or will rapidly deteriorate as a result of CO2 upload. Part of my calm on this subject is because I have read a lot about the ‘coefficient of correlation of CO2 and global warming, and I really don't think it's that high. I won't be around to know if I was right in being relaxed on this subject, but then I have more important things to worry about (including whether the NY Yankees can beat Houston in the ACLS playoffs, assuming they meet!).

My Net/Net (As of Now!)
I am not a researcher or a scientist, and I recognize I know far less than all there is to know on this very complex topic, and I am not a ‘climate change denier’… but, after
also reading a lot of material over the years from ‘the other side’ on this topic, I conclude it is monumentally blown out of proportion relative to those claiming: ‘the sky is falling and fast’!
• Read or skim the book by Steven Koonin: Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters /April 27, 2021; https://www.amazon.com/Unsettled-Climate-Science-Doesnt-Matters/dp/1950665798
• Google ‘satellite measures of temperature’; also, very revealing… see one attachment as an example.
• Look at what is happening in the Netherlands and Sri Lanka! Adherence to UN and ESG mandates are starving countries; and it appears Canada is about to go over the edge!
• None of the climate models are accurate for a whole range of reasons; the most accurate oddly enough is the Russian model but that one is even wrong by orders of magnitude!
• My absolute favorite fact is that based on data from our own governmental observation satellites: the oceans have been rising over the last 15 years at the astonishing rate of 1/8th of an inch annually; and my elementary mathematics suggests that if this rate continues, the sea will rise by an inch sometime around 2030 and by a foot in the year 2118… so, no need to buy a lifeboat if you live in Miami, Manhattan, Boston, Los Angeles, or San Francisco!
• Attached is a recent article and a Research Report summary.
 Probably the most damning is the Research Report comparison of the climate model predictions from 2000, pointing to 2020 versus the actual increase in temperature that has taken place in that timeframe (Pages 9-13). It's tough going and I suggest you just read the yellow areas on Page 9 (the Abstract and Introduction, very short) and the 2 Conclusions on Page 12. But the point is someone is going to the trouble to actually analyze this data on global warming coefficients!
My Observations and Thinking
In the 1970s Time Magazine ran a cover story about our entering a new Ice Age. Sometime in the early 1990s, I recall a climate scientist sounding the first warning about global warming and the potentially disastrous consequences. He specifically predicted high temperatures and massive floods in the early 2000’s. Of course, that did not occur; however, others picked up on his concern and began to drive it forward, with Al Gore being one of the primary voices of climate concern. He often cited the work in the 1990’s of a climate scientist at Penn State University who predicted a rapid increase in temperature, supposedly occurring in 2010 and, of course, this also did not occur.

Nonetheless many scientists from various disciplines also began to warn about global warming starting in the early 2000’s. It was this growing body of ‘scientific’ concern that stimulated Al Gore's concern and his subsequent movie. It would be useful for you to go back to that and review the apocalyptic pronouncements from that time; most of which predicted dire consequences, high temperatures, massive flooding, etc. which were to occur in 10 or 12 years, certainly by 2020. None of this even closely occurred to the extent they predicted.

That said, I was still generally aware of the calamities predicted by a large and diverse body of global researchers and scientists, even though their specific predictions did not take place in the time frame or to the extent that they predicted. As a result, I become a ‘very casual student’ of climate modeling.

Over the past 15 years climate modeling has become a popular practice in universities, think-tanks and governmental organizations around the globe. Similar to medical and other research (e.g., think-tanks, etc.) I recognized that some of the work may have been driven by folks looking for grants and money to keep them and their staff busy.

A climate model is basically a multi-variate model in which the dependent variable is global temperature. All of these models try to identify the independent variables which drive change in global temperature. These independent variables range from parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to sunspot activity, the distance of the earth from the sun, ocean temperatures, cloud cover, etc. The challenge of a multi-variant model is first to identify all of the various independent variables affecting the climate and then to estimate the percent contribution to global warming made by a change in any of these independent variables. For example, what would be the coefficient of correlation for an increase in carbon dioxide parts per million to global warming?

You might find that an interesting cocktail party question to ask your friends “what is the coefficient of correlation between the increase in carbon dioxide parts per million and the effect on global warming?” I would be shocked if any of them even understood what you were saying and flabbergasted if they could give you an intelligent answer! There are dozens of these climate models. You might be surprised that none of them has been particularly accurate if we go back 12 years to 2010, for example, and look at the prediction that the models made for global warming in ten years, by 2020, and how accurate any given model would be.
An enterprising scientist did go back and collected the predictions from a score of climate models and found that a model by scientists from Moscow University was actually closer to being accurate than any of the other models. But the point is none were accurate! They all were wrong on the high side, dramatically over predicting the actual temperature in 2020. Part of the problem was that in several of those years, there was no increase in the global temperature at all. This caused great consternation among global warming believers and the scientific community!

A particularly interesting metric relates to the rise in the level of the ocean. Several different departments in the U.S. government actually measures this important number. You might be surprised to know, as stated earlier, that over the past 15 or so years the oceans have risen at the dramatic rate of 1/8th of an inch annually. This means that if the oceans continued to rise at that level, we would see a rise of an inch in about 8 years, sometime around 2030, and a rise of a foot sometime around the year 2118. I suspect Barack Obama had seen this data and that's why he was comfortable in buying an oceanfront estate on Martha's Vineyard when his presidency ended!

The ‘Milankovitch Theory’ (a Serbian astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch, after whom the Milankovitch Climate Theory is named, proposed about how the seasonal and latitudinal variations of solar radiation that hit the earth in different and at different times have the greatest impact on earth's changing climate patterns) states that as the earth proceeds on its orbit, and as the axis shifts, the earth warms and cools depending on where it is relative to the sun over a 100,000-year, and 40,000-year cycle. Milankovitch cycles are involved in long-term changes to Earth's climate as the cycles operate over timescales of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.

So, consider this: we did not suddenly get a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere this year than we had in 2019 (or other years!), but maybe the planet has shifted slightly as the Milankovitch Theory states, and is now a little closer to the sun, which is why we have the massive drought. Nothing man has done would suddenly make the drought so severe, but a shift in the axis or orbit bringing the planet a bit closer to the sun would. It just seems logical to me. NASA publicly says that the theory is accurate, so it seems that is the real cause; but the press and politicians will claim it is all man caused! You can shut down all oil production and junk all the vehicles, and it will not matter per the Theory! Before the mid-1800’s there were no factories or cars, but the earth cooled and warmed, glaciers formed and melted, and droughts and massive floods happened. The public is up against the education industrial complex of immense corruption!

In the various and universally wrong ‘climate models’, one of the ‘independent’ variables is similar to the Milankovitch Theory. Unfortunately, it is not to the advantage of the climate cabal to admit this or more importantly give it the importance it probably deserves.

People who are concerned about the climate often cite an ‘increase in forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, etc. as proof of global warming’. And many climate deniers point out that most forest fires are proven to be caused by careless humans tossing cigarettes into a pile of leaves or leaving their campfire unattended, and that there has been a dramatic decrease globally on deaths caused by various climate factors. I often read from climate alarmists (journalists, politicians, friends, etc.), what I believe are ‘knee-jerk’ responses since they are not supported by meaningful and relevant data/facts, see typical comments below:
• “The skeptical climate change deniers remind me of the doctors hired by the tobacco industry to refute the charges by the lung cancer physicians that tobacco smoke causes lung cancer. The planet is experiencing unprecedented extreme climate events: droughts, fires, floods etc. and the once in 500-year catastrophic climate event seems to be happening every other year. Slow motion disasters are very difficult to deal with politically. When a 200-mph hurricane hits the east coast and causes a trillion dollars in losses then will deal with it and then climate deniers will throw in the towel!”

These above comments may be right, but to date the forecasts on timing implications across all the models are wrong! It just ‘may be’ in 3, 10 or 50 years… or in 500-5000+ before the ‘sky is falling’ devastating events directly linked to climate occur. If some of the forecasts, models were even close to accuracy to date I would feel differently.

I do not deny there are climate related changes I just don’t see any evidence their impact is anywhere near the professional researchers’ forecasts/models on their impact as well as being ‘off the charts’ different than has happened in the past 100-1000+ years.

But a larger question is “suppose various anthropogenetic actions (e.g., chiefly environmental pollution and pollutants originating in human activity like anthropogenic emissions of sulfur dioxide) are causing global warming?”. What are they, who is doing it, and what do we do about it? The first thing one must do is recognize that this is a global problem and that therefore the actions of any one country has an effect on the overall climate depending upon its population and actions. Many in the United States focus intensely upon reducing carbon emissions in the U.S. when of course the U.S. is only 5% of the world population. We are however responsible for a disproportionate part of the global carbon footprint; we contribute about 12%. The good news is that the U.S. has dramatically reduced its share of the global carbon footprint over the past 20 years and doing so while dramatically increasing our GDP (up until the 1st Half of 2022).

Many factors have contributed to the relative reduction of the U.S. carbon footprint. Chief among these are much more efficient automobiles and the switch from coal-driven electric generation plants to those driven by natural gas, a much cleaner fossil fuel.

While the U.S. is reducing its carbon footprint more than any other country in the world, China has dramatically increased its carbon footprint and now contributes about 30% of the carbon expelled into the atmosphere. China is also building 100 coal-fired plants!

Additional facts, verified by multiple sources including SNOPES, the U.,S. government, engineering firms, etc.:
• No big signatories to the Paris Accord are now complying; the U.S. is out-performing all of them.
• EU is building 28 new coal plants; Germany gets 40% of its power from 84 coal plants; Turkey is building 93 new coal plants, India 446, South Korea 26, Japan 45, China has 2363 coal plants and is building 1174 new ones; the U.S. has 15 and is building no new ones and will close about 15 coal plants.
• Real cost example: Windmills need power plants run on gas for backup; building one windmill needs 1100 tons of concrete & rebar, 370 tons of steel, 1000 lbs of mined minerals (e.g., rare earths, iron and copper) + very long transmission lines (lots of copper & rubber covering for those) + many transmission towers… rare earths come from the Uighur areas of China (who use slave labor), cobalt comes from places using child labor and use lots of oil to run required rock crushers... all to build one windmill! One windmill also has a back-up, inefficient, partially running, gas-powered generating plant to keep the grid functioning! To make enough power to really matter, we need millions of acres of land & water, filled with windmills which consume habitats & generate light distortions and some noise, which can create health issues for humans and animals living near a windmill (this leaves out thousands of dead eagles and other birds).

• So, if we want to decrease the carbon footprint on the assumption that this is what is driving the rise in the sea levels (see POV that sea levels are not rising at: www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRChoNTg) and any increase in global temperature, we need to figure out how to convince China, India and the rest of the world from fouling the air with fossil fuels. In fact, if the U.S. wanted to dramatically reduce its own carbon footprint, we would immediately begin building 30 new nuclear electrical generating plants around the country! France produces about 85% of its electrical power from its nuclear-driven generators. Separately, but related, do your own homework on fossil fuels (e.g., oil) versus electric; especially on the big-time move to electric and hybrid vehicles. Engineering analyses show you need to drive an electric car about 22 years (a hybrid car about 15-18 years) to breakeven on the savings versus the cost involved in using fossil fuels needed to manufacture, distribute and maintain an electric car! Also, see page 14 on the availability inside the U.S. of oil to offset what the U.S. purchases from the middle east and elsewhere, without building the Keystone pipeline from Canada.

Two 4-5-minute videos* on the climate change/C02/new green deal issue, in my opinion, should be required viewing in every high school and college; minimally because it provides perspective and data on the ‘other’ side of the issue while the public gets bombarded almost daily by the ‘sky is falling now or soon’ side on climate change!

* https://www.prageru.com/video/is-there-really-a-climate-emergency and
https://www.prageru.com/video/climate-change-whats-so-alarming

Welcome to Skeptical Science

justice4all at 07:13 AM on 13 September, 2022

As global temperatures rise it becomes more and more apparent that the reduction of our carbon footprint is essential for the planets survival. Temperatures are trending upward due to all the excess carbon in the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels and deforestation is also aiding in the extra global carbon output. Forest are mother nature’s carbon filter, but due to forest loss the planet cant keep up. I feel as a society we are capable of amazing feats of science. We need to focus the worlds greatest minds to build and develop atmospheric filters to manually reduce the amounts of carbon in our atmosphere. We are responsible for the extra gasses so we should do our best to find a solution. Thankfully the technology to do this is being developed currently. Just outside Zurich, more than a dozen massive fans are fast at work, cleaning the air of carbon dioxide. So-called direct air capture is the leading edge of what could become the largest environmental industry aimed at saving the planet. The company behind it, Climeworks, is one of the few offering the technology to basically vacuum the atmosphere of carbon. The plant in Switzerland removes about 900 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to Climeworks policy chief Chris Beuttler. To put it in perspective, globally we are emitting 40 billion tons.

DianaOlick. (2021, July 29). These companies are sucking carbon out of the atmosphere - and investors are piling in. CNBC. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/these-companies-are-sucking-carbon-from-the-atmosphere.html

Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority

One Planet Only Forever at 04:18 AM on 13 July, 2022

To supplement Bob Loblaw’s response to David-acct’s claim made @2,

I am pretty sure that Section 111 was passed after 1965.

Check out the recent SkS reposting of Climate Adam’s “Climate Change: We Were Warned!”. The entire video should be watched. But the part starting at 3:10 in the video conveys the following fact: In 1965 prominent climate scientist Charles Keeling wrote a report to the President of the USA which included a Section titled “Carbon Dioxide from Fossil Fuels – The Invisible Pollutant”.

So it appears that leaders in the USA since 1965 were aware that CO2 from fossil fuels was able to be considered to be a pollutant.

But there is a more fundamental point in response to the claims made by David-acct @2. There are undeniably harmful consequences from the type of thinking exhibited in the SC majority decision. It is a decision that fundamentally ‘allows more liberty to be more harmful’ vs. ‘implementing understandable restrictions on harmful actions that the marketplace (of ideas and of commerce) fails to effectively limit’. Claiming that such a decision is the correct interpretation of the constitution appears to only be explained by one of the following:

The USA Constitution and its current set of Amendments is a fundamentally flawed guiding document for governing (limiting the harm done) by actions within the nation.

Interpretations of the Constitution and Amendments can be harmfully incorrect, and the Constitution is flawed because of wording that is open to such interpretations.

The abuse of the powerful science of misleading marketing can harmfully compromise even the Best Intentions.

There do not appear to be any other common sense explanations. Which one is it? My suspicion is it is a combination of all 3.

Driving with electricity is much cheaper than with gasoline

One Planet Only Forever at 03:08 AM on 9 June, 2022

My comment at 5 only compares the energy efficiency of vehicles. The NRC search tool value of Le (Litres equivalent for electricity to be compared to gasoline) is simply based on the energy in 1 litre of gasoline being equivalent to the energy in 8.9 kWh of electricity.

But there is more to be aware of when evaluating electric vs. fossil fuel powered vehicles. The CO2 emissions from gasoline are about 2.3 kg per litre (many sources present that value). And, based on the EIA answer to "How much carbon dioxide is produced per kilowatthour of U.S. electricity generation?" (other sources present similar numbers):

CO2 emissions from coal generation of electricity, without verified carbon capture and permanent locking away, is about 1 kg per kWh. That means coal based electricity without CCS produces 8.9 kg of CO2 for a Le of electricity (8.9 kWh).

CO2 emissions from natural gas generation of electricity without CCS is about 3.6 kg per 8.9 kWh. That is better than coal but still significant.

The emissions from an electric vehicle with efficiency of 2 Le/100 km powered by coal electricity without CCS would be 17.8 kg / 100 km. That compares unfavorably to a hybrid having an efficiency of 5 L/ 100 km which would produce 11.5 kg / 100 km.

The Statista "Greenhouse gas emissions generation intensity in Canada as of 2015, by province" shows a wide range of emissions from electricity generation in Canada in 2015. In 2015 the average in Cnada was 0.14 kg per kWh. But the highest level of emissions per kWh was Alberta at 0.79 kg per kWh. The emissions from an electric vehicle with efficiency of 2 Le/100 km using 2015 Alberta electricity generation would have been about 13.4 kg / 100 km. That compares unfavorably to a hybrid having an efficiency of 5 L/ 100 km which would produce 11.5 kg / 100 km.

All regions in Canada have reduced their emissions since 2015. In 2019 the Alberta emissions were down to 0.62 kg per kWh. That would be 11.0 kg /100 for an electric vehicle with an Le of 2 L / 100 km. That is slightly better than a hybrid with 5 l/100 km. But it is not as good as a hybrid with 4 l/100 km.

A final note is that paying a premium to 'get low emissions electricity' to power up an electric vehicle does not magically create additional low emissions electricity generation in a region. The region's electricity generation mix remains what it is, with the person trying to be less harmful paying a premium that most likely does not reduce the harm done by regional electricity generation.

The Climate Shell Game

michael sweet at 06:30 AM on 25 March, 2022

Jan,

I think you have the incorrect assumptions behind many of your calculations. This results in your conclusions being in error. In general, whenever I see someone relying on their own calculations instead of published calculations I figure their conclusions are incorrect. I see very little peer reviewed data in your posts.

For example, many published studies describe how to get 100% renewable energy. See this description of Connelly et al 2021 for a starter. I note that you have no problem with "baseload" power sources that require emergency back up power every day to provide peak power but you are concerned that renewable energy might have problems providing peak power. Why is it OK for "baseload" sources to require back up but not renewables? Most of the pumped hydro storage in the USA was built to store power from nuclear power plants at night to use for peak power during the day. Plans like Connelly et al describe how to provide 100% renewable energy. You are wrong to suggest it cannnot be done. Providing 80% renewable energy using existing fossil gas peaker plants as storage is easy and cheaper than fossil power.

Your anaylsis of EV cars seems to me to be completely off. Even if the grid is 100% coal there are benefits from EV. You do not consider that baseload coal power plants are about 40-45% efficient at generating electricity form the heat of the coal. Gas combined cycle plants are over 60% efficient. EV cars are about 90% efficient in using electricity. By contrast, internal combustion cars are only about 20% efficient at using the energy in the oil they burn. When you consider the comparable emissions of carbon dioxide, an EV with electricity from a 100% coal electrical system releases comparable carbon to internal combustion engines. Since the electricity for Evan is over 50% from wind, his EV releases much less CO2 than a comparable ICE car.

According to Our World in Data China gets about 30% of its electricity from renewable sources. It seems to me that when you consider the efficiency of EV cars compared to internal combustion cars the EV's release less CO2 than ICE. Since almost all coal systems use gas for peak power the release of CO2 is even less from EV cars than ICE cars. My brother has solar panels on his roof that recharge his EV car. How much CO2 does his car release?

This peer reviewed paper says that the best thing to do for the next ten years is to build out renewable energy sources as fast as possible and switch to EV's at the same time. If we wait on EV's until we have more renewable energy we will not be able to switch fast enough from ICE's. Your argument that we should wait for more renewable energy to be built is completely incorrect. Please cite a peer reviewed paper that suppports your wild claims. I think your calculations are incorrect as described above.

I note that the people engaging in this conversation are citing their own calculations and not peer reviewed documents. I see many claims that I think have been demonstrated as false in the peer reviewed papers I have read. It seems to me that many of the claims made here are simly fossil propaganda against renewable energy. I want to remind posters that this is supposed to be a science based site. You must support your claims with peer reviewed data.

The poor are building out renewable energy in many locations. Why build a coal generator when renewable energy is much cheaper? Why build out central facilities wheen distributed generation (like PV) is much cheaper? You guys need to read the literature and give up on the fossil fuel propaganda.

SkS Analogy 1 - Speed Kills: How fast can we slow down?

Eclectic at 14:38 PM on 17 February, 2022

Santalives @11 ,

forgive me for intruding so soon again in this thread. I was at my desk, sipping my coffee, when your post popped up on screen. ( Though, from my following comments, you may think I have been sipping lemon juice ! )

Rather than supplying a paper containing scientific research to challenge mainstream climate science, you have instead supplied a paper [really more a discussion article] which leans toward the philosophic. Titled:- "Rethinking Climate, Climate Change, and their Relationship with Water." by Demetris Koutsoyiannis ~ an engineer, professor of Hydrology ~ and a name not entirely unknown in the Deniosphere.

The paper fails to be scientific, despite being dressed up in scientific robes (and including some equations ! ). Essentially the paper is a leisurely rant and a cri du coeur by the author, who appears greatly offended by the term "climate change". Which he describes as a "pleonasm".

Surprisingly, perhaps "pleonasm" does not translate well into the Queen's English, from the author's native Greek. But it is ironic that he takes great exception to a lengthy two-word phrase [climate change] when his own article is of such prolixity that [Nigelj among others] many would not bother to read its entirety.

# Accordingly, I recommend that SkS readers save their time, and do not bother reading professor K's paper . . . unless they wish to do so for purposes of wry amusement. It becomes clear that professor Koutsoyiannis does not understand the basics of climate science, and that he does not wish to.

For example : buried in the mass of the article, the author states that it is temperature change which predominantly causes CO2 change.

For example : the author states that land use change "may have much more substantial effects on the entire Earth than the infamous fossil fuel burning".

For example : the author states that Greenhouse LWRadiation absorption is 19% by carbon dioxide and 75% by water. Largely true ~ but the good professor seems clueless about the significance of it all.

# The paper begins with peripatetic discursiveness. And often a red flag, when pleonasm and Hipparchus are mentioned at the start of an article. As well as Kolmogorov later.

After a great deal of waffle, and an extensive excursion into the 200-year record of precipitation at the city of Bologna . . . the author manages to come to the conclusion that :- "it can be anticipated that many readers would find this paper useless"

...Mmm, I can see Nigelj agreeing with that. But why did not the paper's reviewers not agree with the author's own conclusion?

The author's other conclusion of note is :-

. . . "Climate is not static but dynamic." And at this point, I see the Nobel Committee putting away their pens and notebooks.

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

Daniel Bailey at 07:53 AM on 13 August, 2021

Here's what the peer-reviewed published literature shows, that humans produce 100x more CO2 than all Earth's volcanoes combined:

- Just two-one thousandths* of 1% of Earth's total carbon—about 43,500 gigatonnes (Gt)—is above surface in the oceans, on land, and in the atmosphere. The rest is subsurface, including the crust, mantle and core—an estimated 1.85 billion Gt in all.

- CO2 out-gassed to the atmosphere and oceans today from volcanoes and other magmatically active regions is estimated at 280 to 360 million tonnes (0.28 to 0.36 Gt) per year, including that released into the oceans from mid-ocean ridges.

- Humanity’s annual carbon emissions through the burning of fossil fuels and forests, etc., are 40 to 100 times greater than all volcanic emissions.

- Earth’s deep carbon cycle through deep time reveals balanced, long-term stability of atmospheric CO2, punctuated by large disturbances, including immense, catastrophic releases of magma that occurred at least five times in the past 500 million years. During these events, huge volumes of carbon were outgassed, leading to a warmer atmosphere, acidified oceans, and mass extinctions.

- Similarly, a giant meteor impact 66 million years ago, the Chicxulub bolide strike on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, released between 425 and 1,400 Gt of CO2, rapidly warmed the planet and coincided with the mass (>75%) extinction of plants and animals—including the dinosaurs. Over the past 100 years, emissions from anthropogenic activities such as burning fossil fuels have been 40 to 100 times greater than our planet’s geologic carbon emissions.

- A shift in the composition of volcanic gases from smelly (akin to burnt matches) sulphur dioxide (SO2) to a gas richer in odorless, colorless CO2 can be sniffed out by monitoring stations or drones to forewarn of an eruption—sometimes hours, sometimes months in advance. Eruption early warning systems with real-time monitoring are moving ahead to exploit the CO2 to SO2 ratio discovery, first recognized with certainty in 2014.

Regarding the release of CO2 from volcanoes:

"Earth’s total annual out-gassing of CO2 via volcanoes and through other geological processes such as the heating of limestone in mountain belts is newly estimated at roughly 300 to 400 million metric tonnes (0.3 to 0.4 Gt).

Volcanoes and volcanic regions alone outgas an estimated 280–360 million tonnes (0.28 to 0.36 Gt) of CO2 per year. This includes the CO2 contribution from active volcanic vents, from the diffuse, widespread release of CO2 through soils, faults, and fractures in volcanic regions, volcanic lakes, and from the mid-ocean ridge system."

https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-produce-100x-more-co2-than-all-volcanoes-combined
https://deepcarbon.net/scientists-quantify-global-volcanic-co2-venting-estimate-total-carbon-earth
http://elementsmagazine.org/past-issues/catastrophic-perturbations-deep-carbon-cycle/

Kelemen and Manning 2015 - Reevaluating carbon fluxes in subduction zones, what goes down, mostly comes up

de Moor et al 2016 - Short-period volcanic gas precursors to phreatic eruptions: Insights from Poás Volcano, Costa Rica

McCormick et al 2016 - Observing eruptions of gas-rich, compressible magmas from space

Johansson et al 2018 - The Interplay Between the Eruption and Weathering of Large Igneous Provinces and the Deep‐Time Carbon Cycle

Tamburello et al 2018 - Global-scale control of extensional tectonics on CO2 earth degassing

Lee et al 2019 - A Framework for Understanding Whole-Earth Carbon Cycling

Black and Gibson 2019 - Deep Carbon and the Life Cycle of Large Igneous Provinces

Kamber and Petrus 2019 - The Influence of Large Bolide Impacts on Earth’s Carbon Cycle

"pCO2 is a result of the balance between the rate of CO2 inputs through magmatic/metamorphic degassing and the rates of carbon removal via silicate weathering and organic carbon burial."

McKenzie and Hehe Jiang 2019 - Earth’s Outgassing and Climatic Transitions_The Slow Burn Towards Environmental Catastrophes

Mikhail and Furi 2019 - On the Origins and Evolution of Earth’s Carbon

Schobben et al 2019 - Interpreting the Carbon Isotope Record of Mass Extinctions

Suarez et al 2019 - Earth Catastrophes and Their Impact on the Carbon Cycle

Werner et al 2019 - Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Subaerial Volcanic Regions_Two Decades in Review

"All studies to date of global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions indicate that present-day subaerial and submarine volcanoes release less than a percent of the carbon dioxide released currently by human activities. "

https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/gas_climate.html

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

scaddenp at 07:32 AM on 13 August, 2021

jon_zz09 - the killer for that argument is the volcanic CO2 has very different C isotopic signature to that fossil fuels. The changes in atmospheric C isotopic composition are consistant with FF source. Furthermore, the studies referenced in this article (and see more here) account for submarine volcanoes. While estimation is difficult even the high end of the estimates is small compared to FF emissions. Finally, there is no evidence of an increase in volcanism as Rob says ( see here from Global Volcanism Program).

Key takeaways from the new IPCC report

MA Rodger at 05:12 AM on 13 August, 2021

ilfark2 @8,

The usual work that sets the scene for the fate of our CO2 emissions is that of David Archer (eg Archer et al (2009) 'Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide' Fig 1b from the paper is pasted below.) Such work tends to involve the modelling of a big impulse of CO2 rather than the 'slow' release over decades we are managing at the present.

This graphic shows that 30% of a very big release of CO2 is still in the atmosphere millennia after its release. Fig1a (which I can't see on-line to post here) models a 1,000Pg release which is closer to what we humans will likely manage (So far we have managed 700Pg.) and suggests the final CO2 level would consist of 20% our total emissions.

Archer et al (2009) fig 1b

The situation with our present emissions is that annually the rise in CO2 levels equates to about 45% of our annual emissions, this referred to as the Airborne Fraction. Thus annually we are emitting roughly 36Gt(CO2) = 10Gt(C), and seeing an atmospheric increase of some 2.4ppm or [2.4 x 2.13 =] 5.1Gt(C) or [x 3.664 =] 18.7Gt(CO2).

However the 55% that is thus being swepted from the atmosphere into oceans and the biosphere should not be seen as 55% of our annual emissions but as a smaller fraction of the accumulative emissions over past decades.

And because that is 55% of past emissions (which all our emissions will become when we stop emitting), that draw-down will continue although slowly diminishing with time. This reduction in atmospheric CO2 will thus reduce the climate forcing from AGW and counteract the 'in-the-pipeline' warming from the planetary energy imbalance. So warming will quickly stop. I don't think there is much reversal of warming, your "stabilize at a lower temperature."

I am a little surprised to read the comment in recent web articles suggesting this reasonably quick end to warming following a termination of CO2 emissions is somehow new learning. It has been well understood for many years now. What perhaps has prevented the communication of this knowledge is the absence the political will to enact such a cut in emissions. Thus the gradual reduction over several decades was what the science modelled, not a sudden zeroing of our emissions.

It's not bad

TVC15 at 10:06 AM on 16 July, 2021

Hi Skeptical Science Team,

I am not trying to come across as a pessimist, in fact I am very jolly happy optimist. (it’s my nature).

However, looking around at all the attitudes that lack an understanding of how urgent our climate situation is, and the fact that not much has been done to ween the globe from fossil fuel burning, I can’t help but to think we are past the point of being able to curb the future disasters that are coming our way due to climate change. Those disasters are here and now already.

We are now living on a planet that is in the beginning stages of driving humans, as well as other animal species towards extinction. We’ve already caused extensive death and destruction. Over 50 percent of the world's coral reefs have died in the last 30 years and up to 90 percent may die within the next century. The rate of normal background extinction is hundreds, or even thousands of times higher than the natural baseline rate.

Also, since CO2 lingers around in the atmosphere for 1000’s of years and we are continuing to pump ~50 Billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents a year into the atmosphere, how on earth are we going to prevent the creation of a runaway greenhouse effect?

Am I alone in thinking we’ve reached a point of no return?

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

One Planet Only Forever at 14:42 PM on 26 June, 2021

nigelj,

We are generally agreeing. But your first comment implied some things about the nature of the presentation of information in the article "Is the Controlled Shrinking of Economies a Better Bet to Slow Climate Change Than Unproven Technologies?" that were incorrect which prompted my responses.

The study that the article is based upon opens with the following abstract:

"1.5 °C scenarios reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rely on combinations of controversial negative emissions and unprecedented technological change, while assuming continued growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Thus far, the integrated assessment modelling community and the IPCC have neglected to consider degrowth scenarios, where economic output declines due to stringent climate mitigation. Hence, their potential to avoid reliance on negative emissions and speculative rates of technological change remains unexplored. As a first step to address this gap, this paper compares 1.5 °C degrowth scenarios with IPCC archetype scenarios, using a simplified quantitative representation of the fuel-energy-emissions nexus. Here we find that the degrowth scenarios minimize many key risks for feasibility and sustainability compared to technology-driven pathways, such as the reliance on high energy-GDP decoupling, large-scale carbon dioxide removal and large-scale and high-speed renewable energy transformation. However, substantial challenges remain regarding political feasibility. Nevertheless, degrowth pathways should be thoroughly considered."

And there is ample presentation of information to indicate that the degrowth perceptions are based on the use of GDP as the measure of "growth" rather than the more correct measures presented in HDR 2020.

Indeed when an incorrect measure like GDP is used the development of "sustainable growth" activity can appear to result in zero-growth or degrowth, especially because the highest-consuming highest-status portion of the population really does have to reduce their consumption starting now. That proof of deserving higher status by setting the better behaviour example should have been required of the highest status people starting 30 years ago. But it is never too late to demand and get better behaviour from supposedly superior people rather than just believe that it is OK for higher status people to be deliberately harmful if that is the way they choose to be.

I support increased building of renewable energy and shutting down existing fossil fuel generation even before its "investment end of life", even if that is more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives. And that earlier shutting down of existing fossil fuel operations should be further expedited by pressure on the highest energy consumers to reduce their energy consumption. That also means ending the belief that GDP is a valid measure of progress or success (and ending the very flawed belief that popularity and profit are inherently good indications of the relative merit of alternatives.

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

michael sweet at 06:01 AM on 18 June, 2021

Bob @59:

I am also not very impressed with the Boundary Dam installation. They only catch a small fraction of the carbon dioxide from the power plant and it is costly. They have demonstrated that they can catch carbon dioxide but it does not look economic to me. They use the carbon dioxide to get more oil out of the ground.

It may be that they can use carbon capture on plants burning biological materials to support electrofuel manufacture if that path is taken. It will not be a cheap way to go. I do not see carbon capture as a way to allow the continued use of large amounts of fossil fuels.

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

michael sweet at 05:53 AM on 18 June, 2021

MARodger:

Your link was a good place to start. I think they got most of their information from the Global CCS institute here. Both locations have lists of CCS facilities in the USA and worldwide. Apparently the USA has the strongest government support for CCS. There are only 65 facilities built ior in planing, some very small, and I did not have time to read them all. I note that the largest, most expensive unit at Kemper in the USA was canned after several billion dollars was spent.

In general, most of the carbon is being injected back into the Earth to enhance oil recovery. It increases the cost of the process (usually making electricity but also cement and other chemicals). While they have demonstrated that they can catch the carbon dioxide, it is very expensive. The scale of capture to meet temperature goals is very large. When they stop recovering oil with the carbon dioxide it will be even more expensive. Many plants get the carbon dioxide from natural gas, a source which will be eliminated in the future.

I am skeptical that CCS can reach the very high goals asked for it. They are talking about even more expansion of CCS than is needed for renewable energy. The renewable energy goals are high also, but at least you make money investing in it.

I agree with Dr. Mann that a lot of CCS is a cover for the fossil fuel industries and not a reasistic proposal.

Greens: Divided on ‘clean’ energy? Or closer than they appear?

Lawrie at 19:52 PM on 24 May, 2021

Regarding Nigelj’s statement that: “But there is nothing fundamentally wrong with fossil fuel carbon capture and nuclear power. Because they both provide clean, zero carbon energy and can do it safely.” Well, not really. Nuclear power is neither clean nor safe. Uranium is a heavy metal toxic enough without the added hazard of radioactivity. Mining and processing of uranium is hazardous to workers and mining sites are irreversibly contaminated. Uranium and reactor products cannot be chemically neutralised so storage of nuclear waste imposes a burden on future generations for thousands of years.
Carbon capture and storage imposes even worse hazards than nuclear power. The idea is that CO2 emitted from fossil fuel powered generators can be captured, then compressed and forced underground into naturally occurring storage sites. Unlike nuclear waste CO2 has no half life. This means we are being asked to believe by CCS proponents that it is feasible to capture millions of tonnes of CO2 and sequester it safely FOREVER. Are there geological formations in the forever scenario that are so stable that they will never be threatened by seismic events?
It's reasonable to suggest that at least 10 million tonnes of CO2 could be sequestered at storage sites. Should such a cache be explosively released it would create a 5 cubic kilometre cloud ground-hugging cloud that would poison or smother everything in its path.
This is not science fiction. In 1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa, an estimated one cubic kilometre of carbon dioxide gas, naturally sequestered in the deep, cold water of the lake was explosively released to the atmosphere. No one knows what triggered the release but at least 1700 residents died from toxicity or suffocation as the gas flowed over the countryside. Luckily, deaths were limited by the sparse population in this remote area and the relatively small volume of carbon dioxide.
In the next 20 years with political will the entire world could be run on renewable energy. It is now immoral to use technologies whose waste products will endure to effect future generations thousands of years after everyone has forgotten about their presence.

How sure are climate scientists?

ubrew12 at 06:33 AM on 12 May, 2021

It's worth noting that uncertainty cuts both ways, and I hope his next video, on renewables, does this. Renewable power plants are temporary structures, while emissions from fossil fuel power plants are essentially permanent. The former thus comes with much less risk than the latter: you can take down a wind turbine, you can't take down an excess of carbon dioxide. Thus, the uncertainty about our climate future, so often used against climate action, actually favors renewable energy, and disfavors the fossil status quo.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #1

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy at 17:47 PM on 11 January, 2021

Negelj

Global Warming: It is an estimate of the annual average part of temperature trend. The trend of 1880 to 2010 is 0.6oC per century in which global warming component is 0.3oC – 1951 to 2100 is 0.45oC – according to linear trend. But in reality it is not so as the energy component is constant over which superposed sunspot cycle. However, the reliability depends up on the data used. For example number of stations in around 1850 were < 100 and by around 1980 [started satellite data collection started around this time] they were more than 6000 and with the availability of satellite data the number of stations drastically come down to around 2500. The satellite data covered both urban-heat-island effect and rural-cold-island effect and showed practically no trend – US raw data series also showed this. However, this data was removed from internet [Reddy, 2008 – Climate Change: Myths & Realities, available on line] and replaced with new adjusted data series that matches with ground data series. Here cold-island effect is not covered. With all this, what I want say is warmings associated with solar power plants is added to global warming. How much?? This needs collection of data for all the solar power stations. Met station covers a small area only but acts like UHI effect – I saw a report “surface temperatures in downtown Sacramento at 11 a.m. June 30, 1998 – this presents high variation from area to area based on land use [met station refers to that point only]. So, solar wind power plants effect covers similar to heatwaves and coldwaves. Here general Circulation Pattern plays main role.

Nuclear Power: Nuclear power production processes contribute to “global warming process” while hydropower production processes contribute to “global cooling process”; the nuclear power production processes don’t fit into “security, safety & economy” on the one hand and on the other “environment & social” concepts; unlike other power production processes, in nuclear power production process different stages of nuclear fuel cycles are counted as separate entities while assessing the cost of power per unit and only the power production component is accounted in the estimation of cost of power per unit; carbon dioxide is released in every component of nuclear fuel cycle except the actual fusion in the reactor. Fossil fuels are involved in the mining-transport-milling conversion-processing of ore-enrichment of the fuel, in the handling of the mill tailings-in the fuel can preparation-in the construction of plant and it decommissioning-demolition, in the handling of the spent waste-in its processing and vitrification and in digging the hole in rock for its deposition, etc. and in the manufacturing of necessary required equipment in all these stages and thus their transportation. In all these stages radiological and non-radiological pollution occurs – in the case of tail pond it runs in to hundreds of years. Around 60% of the power plant cost goes towards the equipment, most of which is to be imported. The spent fuel storage is a critical issue, yet no solution was found. Also the life of reactors is very short and the dismantling of such reactors is costly & risky, etc., etc.

Michael Sweet/ Negelj

In 70&80s I worked and published several articles relating to radiation [global solar and net and evaporation/evapotranspiration] – referred in my book of 1993 [based on articles published in international and national journals]. Coal fired power plants reduces ground level temperature by reducing incoming solar radiation. In the case of Solar Panels create urban heat island condition and thus increases the surrounding temperature. In both the cases these changes depends upon several local conditions including general circulation patterns. Ground condition plays major role on radiation at the surface that define the surface temperature [hill stations, inland stations & coastal stations] – albedo factor varies. Also varies with soil conditions – black soil, red soil. Sea Breeze/land breeze – relates to temperature gradient [soil quickly warm up and quickly release the heat and water slowly warm up and slowly release heat] and general circulation pattern existing in that area plays the major role in advection.

Response to Moderator

See some of my publications for information only:

Reddy, S.J., (1993): Agroclimatic/Agrometeorological Techniques: As applicable to Dry-land Agriculture in Developing Countries, www.scribd.com/Google Books, 205p; Book Review appeared in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 67 (1994):325-327.
Reddy, S.J., (2002): Dry-land Agriculture in India: An Agroclimatological and Agrometeorological Perspective, BS Publications, Hyderabad, 429.
Reddy, S.J., (2008): Climate Change: Myths & Realities, www.scribd.com/Google Books, 176.
Reddy, S.J., (2016): Climate Change and its Impacts: Ground Realities. BS Publications, Hyderabad, 276.
Reddy, S.J., (2019a): Agroclimatic/Agrometeorological Techniques: As applicable to Dry-land Agriculture in Developing Countries [2nd Edition]. Brillion Publishing, New Delhi, 372p.

2.1.2 Water vapour

Earth’s temperature is primarily driven by energy cycle; and then by the hydrological cycle. Global solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface and net radiation/radiation balance at the Earth’s surface is generally estimated as a function of hours of bright Sunshine. Total cloud cover [average of low, medium & high clouds] has a direct relation to hours of bright Sunshine (Reddy, 1974). Cube root of precipitation showed a direct relation to total solar radiation and net radiation (Reddy, 1987). In all these latitude plays major role (Reddy & Rao, 1973; Reddy, 1987). Evaporation presents a relation with net and global solar radiation (Reddy & Rao, 1973) wherein relative humidity plays an important role that reduces with increasing relative humidity. If ‘X’ is global solar radiation received under100% relative humidity then with the dryness [with relative humidity coming down] it may reach a maximum of 2X; and under net radiation also with increasing relative humidity net radiation is reduced. That means water vapour in the atmosphere is the principal component that controls the incoming and outgoing radiation and thus temperature at the Earth’s surface. Thar Desert presents high temperature with negligible water vapour in the atmosphere as maximum energy reaches the earth’s surface. However, these impacts differ under inland (dryness), hill (declining temperature with height – lapse rate) & coastal (wetness) locations and sun’s movement (latitude and declination of the Sun — seasons) (Reddy & Rao, 1973). IPCC integrated these under “climate system” and the advective condition by general circulation pattern [GCP].
Cold-island effect [I coined this, see Reddy (2008)] is part of human induced climate change associated with changes in land use and land cover. Since 1960’s to meet the food needs of ever increasing population, started intensive agriculture – conversion of dryland to wetland; & creation of water resources; etc. In this process increased levels of evaporation and evapotranspiration contributed to raise in water vapour up to around 850 mb levels in the lower atmosphere. Unusual changes in water vapour beyond 850 mb level [for example at 700 mb level] become a cause for thunderstorm activity (Reddy & Rao, 1978). Wet bulb temperature (oC) at the surface of the Earth provides the square root of total water vapour (g/cm2) in the vertical column of the atmosphere; and also wet bulb temperature (oC) is a function of dry bulb temperature (oC), relative humidity (%) and square root of station level pressure (height) relative to standard value in mb [p/1060] (Reddy, 1976). Thus, unlike CO2, water vapour presents a short life with steadily increasing with land use and land cover changes. However, met network in this zones have been sparse and thus the cold island effect is not properly accounted under global average temperature computations. Though satellite data takes this in to account, this data series were withdrawn from the internet and introduced new adjusted data series that matches with adjusted ground data series. Annual state-wise temperature data series in India wherein intensive agriculture practices are existing, namely Punjab, Haryana & UP belt, showed decreasing trend in annual average temperature – cooling. Some of these are explained below:

Reddy (1983) presented a daily soil water balance model that computes daily evapotranspiration, known as ICSWAB Model. The daily soil water balance equation is generally written as:

▲Mn = Rn – AEn – ROn - Dn

In the above equation left to right represent the soil moisture change, rainfall or irrigation, actual evapotranspiration, surface runoff and deep drainage on a given day (n). The term Actual Evapotranspiration [AEn] is to be estimated as a function of f(E), f(S) & f(C), wherein they represent functions of evaporative demand on day n, soil & crop factors, respectively. As these three factors are mutually interactive, the multiplicative type of function is used.

AEn = f(En) x f(S) x f(C)

However, the crop factor does not act independently of the soil factor. Thus it is given as:

AEn = f(En) x f(S,C) and f(S,C) = K x bn

Where f(S,C) is the effective soil factor, K = soil water holding capacity [that varies with soil type] in mm and bn is the crop growth stage [that vary with crop & cropping pattern] factor that varies between 0.02 to 0.24 — fallow to full crop cover conditions (with leaf area index crossing 2.75). Evaporative demand is expressed by the terms evaporation and/or evapotranspiration. Evaporation (E) and evapotranspiration (PE) are related as:

PE = 0.85 x E [with mesh cover] or = 0.75 x E [without mesh cover].

However, the relationship holds good only under non-advective conditions [i.e., under wind speeds less than 2.5 m/sec]. Under advective conditions E is influenced more by advection compared to PE. In the case of PE, by definition, no soil evaporation takes place and thus PE relates to transpiration only – where the crop grows on conserved soil moisture with negligible soil evaporation. With the presence of soil evaporation, the potential evapotranspiration reaches as high as 1.2 x PE or E with mesh cover. McKenney & Rosenberg (1993) studied sensitivity of some potential evapotranspiration estimation methods to climate change. The widely used methods are Thornthwaite and Penman presented 750 mm and 1500 mm wherein Thornthwaite method is basically uses temperature and Penman uses several meteorological parameters (Reddy, 1995).
In this process the temperature is controlled by solar energy but moisture under different soil types [water holding capacity] it is modified. This modified temperature cause actual evapotranspiration and thus water vapour. This is a vicious circle. For example average annual temperature in red soils Anantapur it is 27.6oC; in deep black soils Kadapa it is 29.25oC & in medium soils Kurnool it is 28.05oC. That means, local temperature is controlled by soils.
Reddy (1976a&b) presented a method of estimating precipitable water in the entire column of the atmosphere at a given location using Wet Bulb Temperature. The equations are given as follows:

Tw = T x [0.45 + 0.006 x h x (p/1060)1/2]

W = c’ x Tw2

Where T & Tw are dry and wet bulb temperatures in oC; h is the relative humidity in %; p is the annual normal station level pressure in mb [1060 normal pressure in mb, a constant] ; W is the precipitable water vapour in gm/cm2 and c’ is the regression coefficient.
WMO (1966) presented methods to separate trend from natural rhythmic variations in rainfall and assessing the cycles if any. (Late) Dr. B. Parthasarathy from IITM/Pune used these techniques in Indian rainfall analysis. Reddy (2008) presented such analysis with global average annual temperature anomaly data series of 1880 to 2010 and found the natural cycle of 60-years varying between -0.3 to +0.3oC & trend of 0.6oC per century [Reddy, 2008]. This is based on adjusted data series but in USA raw data [Reddy, 2016] there is no trend. The hottest daily temperature data series of Sydney in Australia shows no trend [Reddy, 2019a]. Thus, the trend needs correction if the starting and ending point parts are in the same phase of the cycle – below and below or above and above the average parts. During 1880 to 2010 period two full 60-year cycles are covered and thus, no need to correct the trend as the trend passes through the mean points of the two cycles.

3.2.4 What is global warming part of the trend?

According to IPCC AR5, this trend of 0.6oC per century is not global warming but it consists of several factors:
a. More than half is [human induced] greenhouse effect part:
i. It consists of global warming component & aerosols component, etc. If we assume global warming component alone is 50% of the total trend, then it will be 0.3oC per Century under linear trend;
ii. Global warming starting year is 1951 & thus the global warming from 1951 to 2100 [150 years] is 0.45oC under linear trend;
iii. But in nature this can’t be linear as the energy is constant and thus CSF can’t be a constant but it should be decreasing non-linearly;
iv. Under non-linear condition by 2100 the global warming will be far less than 0.45oC and thus the trend will be far less than half;
b. Less than half the trend is ecological changes [land use and land cover change] part – mostly local & regional factors:
i. This consists of urban-heat-island effect and rural-cold-island effect;
1. Urban-heat-island effect – with the concentrated met network overestimates warming;
2. Rural-cold-island effect – with the sparse met network underestimates cooling;

2.2.1 Uncertainty on “Climate Sensitivity Factor”

The word “climate Crisis” is primarily linked to global warming. To know whether there is really global warming, if so how much, climate sensitivity factor plays the main role. Climate sensitivity is a measure [oC/(W/m2)] – how much warming we expect (both near-term and long-term) for a given increase in CO2? According to Mark, D. Zilinka (2020), “Equilibrium climate sensitivity, the global surface temperature response to the CO2 doubling, has been persistently uncertain”.
Recent modelling data suggests the climate is considerably more sensitive to carbon emissions than previously believed, and experts said the projections had the potential to be “incredibly alarming”, though they stressed further research would be needed to validate the new numbers. Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said. “Climate sensitivity is the holy grail of climate science. It is the prime indicator of climate risk.
The role of clouds is one of the most uncertain areas in climate science because they are hard to measure and, depending on altitude, droplet temperature and other factors can play either a warming or a cooling role. For decades, this has been the focus of fierce academic disputes. Catherine Senior, head of understanding climate change at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said more studies and more data are needed to fully understand the role of clouds and aerosols. With this vital disputes how anyone can say there is global warming without solving this issue; so I said “global warming hysteria factor is climate crisis”.

What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?

Alan Russell at 07:49 AM on 15 October, 2020

As Anne Mottet (Livestock Development Officer at the FAO) has said: "people are continually exposed to incorrect information about livestock and the environment that is repeated without being challenged", however it is disappointing to see Skeptical Science contributing to this.

To a degree, this is fairly understandable as if you're looking at reports on the environmental impact of foods, it can be hard to find good, objective information, as even reports from professional scientists sometimes seem to verge closer to advocacy than science, but here are some things to look out for:
- Does it use 100 year carbon dioxide equivalent emissions factors to account for short-lived atmospheric emissions? If so, this is a red flag and you should probably stop paying attention to the author(s) other than being wary of further misinformation from them, see LINK1, and LINK2. Methane has a half-life in the atmosphere of about 10 years, so if cattle herd sizes remain the same over the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere they will maintain the same amount of additional methane in the atmosphere year on year. In simplistic terms, their contribution to warming is equivalent to a closed power station. Note that the amount of cattle in Europe and North America is actually lower than it was in the 1960's whilst India has fewer cattle than it did in the 1980s, (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QA/visualize), so their associated methane emissions have actually dropped. This is a classic bit of information that is often unknown/ignored by those pushing the line "the importance of keeping animal products – particularly red meat, such as beef, and dairy – to a minimum". Even professional scientists like Mike Berners-Lee do this.
- Does it count rainfall as a water consumption i.e. does it distinguish between green water and blue water? For animals grazing on grass, the blue water consumption is pretty much zero: LINK3.
- Are the soil benefits of grazing accounted for? "Soil C sequestration from well-managed grazing may help to mitigate climate change" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338) along with the provision of organic fertiliser, which reduces dependence on and impacts of fertiliser production and use.
- Does it compare indirect emissions with direct emissions in a flawed comparison? This error was committed in the 'Livestock's Long Shadow' report and despite a lot of effort to correct it, the damage it caused still persists (LINK4).
- Do reports which link beef to land clearing accurately represent the process that they are reporting on? Often they misrepresent a more complex process in which livestock farming plays a part by associating all of the impacts with livestock (LINK5).
- Do the reports accurately represent what livestock eat, the vast majority of which is stuff that we can't eat? See LINK6.

From what I have seen, if you're trying to eat to maximise the sustainability of society, you'd probably be best to try and focus on nutrient density, meaning that most people would probably eat more eggs, fibrous veg, fish, and meat, and less flours, cereals, added fats and oils (mostly the unsaturated ones), sugars, and grains, which are much lower in nutrient density and satiety than meat, and are significant contributors to the obesity and diabetes problems we face, and are also responsible for most of the agricultural monocultures and (fossil fuel dependent) fertiliser and pesticide use. Maximising nutrient density and satiety means that you need to eat less (LINK7, Marty Kendall also has a lot of good information on his Optimising Nutrition site), so reducing your impact and you'd probably waste less food (http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/). The other really good thing you could do is support regenerative systems of food production - focussing on best practice and the appropriateness of where crops are grown can make a huge difference. From the 2017 FAO study that I've linked above, it was calculated that a 21% increase in world meat production could require 95m hectares more land (an increase of 4%). This is an increase in land demand however note that it is based on the following conservative assumptions:
- up to 15% improvement in feed conversion ratio, which compares to, for example, the halving of feed conversion ratios over the last thirty years for poultry and pigs in Brazil, Thailand, and Europe;
- constant yields on grasslands, i.e. no improvements from regenerative agriculture (https://www.rootsofnature.co.uk/regenerative-agriculture-subsidy/).

If you're trying to maximise your chances of food security, then reducing livestock farming, which contributes to food security by producing some of the most nutrient dense food we can eat from stuff we can't eat, on land where nothing else could be produced seems a bad idea.

If you're trying to find the best thing to do to maximise the sustainability of society, and you're in the richest 10% in the world, you should probably try to cut back on burning stuff. There are some excellent resources on Gapminder on this. If you haven't seen it already, this is a good place to start: LINK8. Most of the environmental communications against meat seem to me to be misdirection, either consciously or subconsciously. This seems to be for one of two reasons. It seems to be used as a means to look as if effective action is taking place whilst avoiding discussion and implementation of more effective actions e.g. what's an easier sell - you don't need to change your consumptive lifestyle and can have food that looks, tastes, and feels pretty similar to what you eat now but is "plant-based" (whatever the marketers choose that to mean) and therefore doesn't have the impacts of animal products, which may be fine if you don't look too closely at the nutrient density or impacts of whatever is in what you are eating, and the benefits of animal products, or you have to consume less (don't buy/build that thing, don't go that trip, switch that off)? It can also be the case that those propagating the information are so blinded by their anti-animal agriculture ideology, and so disconnected from nature, that they are unable to objectively reason. This is bad enough in itself, but when this is present amongst scientists, it borders on an abuse of their position - people are depending on them for rigorous, objective analysis, and if they are unable to do this, then they are unable to do their job pretending that they are causes more harm than good.

From all that I have seen and read over the last few years, a nutrient dense omnivorous diet produced using regenerative agriculture is the most sustainable for us as a species. I am just an enthusiastic amateur however, so if you have better information, I'd be interested in seeing it, though all of the publications I have seen that promoted reductions in animal product consumption have been based on the kinds of misinformation I've highlighted above.

Apologies for the long post but I've seen this kind of misinformation a lot and I think it's important that information like this is represented as accurately as possible as I think that people generally want to aid the sustainability of society, but are too busy to spend much time researching, so misinformation is believed if it is repeated often enough or people trust the source. Decisions based on bad information are dangerous as the consequences are often worse than the problem you tried to solve.

Interactive: What is the climate impact of eating meat and dairy?

CD at 09:50 AM on 3 October, 2020

About 10 years ago SkepticalScience posted an article entitled “Does breathing [by humans] contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?”
(see here ) Their answer to the question was "no". Their reasoning was based on the carbon cycle: what goes in must come out. So nothing can change, except that it does.

Now we have another article on the same site that effectively argues the opposite: that breathing from farm animals contributes to global warming. The problem is that both these articles are wrong, at least in part, because they both fail to distinguish between the steady state and systems that are evolving over time.

As I pointed out in comment @152 in response to the first article, and also on my own blog (see Post 36), the carbon cycle only applies to the steady state. By definition climate change implies evolution over time. If the number of cows increases then they will change the distribution of carbon between the different reservoirs (air, plants, soil) until a new equilibrium distribution of carbon is achieved. In effect they divert carbon directly into the atmosphere that would otherwise have first entered the soil and then decomposed. I have estimated that the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1900 due to the increase in human and livestock populations over the same time period to be (much) less than 30 ppm. That increase in CO2 is not going to end life on Earth. In fact it is less than the current increases we are seeing from fossil fuels every 15 years. Vegan lifestyles are not going to save the planet.

So when examining climate change it is the change in the number of animals and humans that is is crucial, not their actual number. And, since 1900, livestock numbers have increased dramatically, while over the same time period the human population has nearly quadrupled. That is the elephant in the room that no-one will discuss, and no amount of vegan virtue signalling will compensate for that.

The problem with this article, and others like it, is that it seeks to equate emissions from cows with emissions from fossil fuels. That is bad science. Even if animals and cars produce the same amount of CO2 and/or methane, they will not cause the same increase in atmospheric CO2 levels because they are acquiring their carbon input from entirely different sources. One is largely self-sustaining, returning the CO2 from whence it came (the atmosphere), with only slight changes to the balance of carbon in the different reservoirs of the carbon cycle due to its own rate of change; the other continuously adds more new carbon to the carbon cycle, starting with the atmosphere, and so dramatically changes the balance of carbon in the different reservoirs. Eating less meat is no substitute for consuming less fossil fuels.

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35

nigelj at 13:05 PM on 3 September, 2020

gseattle @8

"[2] NASA: 1880 to 2020 CO2 increased from 291 ppm to 414 ppm = +123 ppm. 123 / 140 years = .88 ppm average per year. 95 percent come from natural sources. Therefore our CO2 is .88 ppm x .05 = only .04 ppm per year average. "

You are very mistaken in your conclusion. The page you link to says: "Die Welt presented a common number-trick (deception, nonsense) by climate deniers, (as follows): In fact, carbon dioxide, which is blamed for climate warming, has only a volume share of 0.04 percent in the atmosphere. And of these 0.04 percent CO2, 95 percent come from natural sources, such as volcanoes or decomposition processes in nature. The human CO2 content in the air is thus only 0.0016 percent........"

The 95% carbon dioxide added by natural sources is largely from the biosphere, and volcanoes etcetera and has been largely constant over the last 100 years and is absorbed back into natural carbon sinks, so it cannot explain the increase from 291 ppm to 414 ppm. Only human activities like burning fossil fuels and deforestation explain it, because these has been ever increasing activities, and not all the CO2 is absorbed back into carbon sinks. If you refer to the list of climate myths on this website page at the side, you will find some detailed explanations.

"That's why NOAA pointed out the covid shutdown didn't make a dent in CO2 levels at Mauna Loa Observatory, because nature's portion is so vast."

No that is not the reason. NOAA are saying the effects of covid on CO2 levels cant be detected atmospherically because they are masked by the quite large cyclical variation of CO2 you get within one or two years due to seasonal changes and el nino. If the covid shutdown went on for say 5 years you would see a change in atmospheric levels.

So you have misinterpreted things quite badly.

I agree population growth is a problem in terms of virtually all environmental impacts, but I think that manipulating this trend is unlikely to do much to stop either the climate change problem or species extinction, as follows. Population started to slow since the 1960s as countries have entered the demographic transition which has favoured smaller families, and as governments have sometimes pushed population growth rates down deliberately. There may be more that can be done to slow population growth, but it would seem unlikely that people will stop having children and more likely that they might settle on 1 - 2 chidren.

This means the population trends still lead to about 9 billion people or so by the end of this century, so this would not have any significant effect on slowing down the climate problem or biodiversity loss, this century anyway. And by then the damage will have been done.

So its important we change our sources of energy, and reduce deforestation and change how we farm.

Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

RedBaron at 13:57 PM on 29 May, 2020

@136 antjrk,

The same sort of logic fallacies are present in your line of reasoning as are often found in the "anti-herbivore" propaganda.

1 is a vacuous truth red herring.

2 is a false premise.

3 is a hasty generalization association fallacy.

4 is true

"If we agreed to above premises the general conclusion has to be: supporting life of more than 7 billions people on the Earth requires emission of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels to atmosphere." is circular reasoning where the conclusion is exactly the same as the premises. Especially 2 being a false premise makes the conclusion unsupported as well.

To boil it down to the essence, yes agriculture currently contributes to AGW, but there is no reason to assume it MUST contribute to AGW. In fact there is plenty of evidence that agriculture could be managed in a way that is net negative on the carbon cycle to the atmosphere, by sequestring a large % of the primary products of photosynthesis into the soil. A process that also has a side effect of greater yields without the need for haber process nitrogen fertilizers.

Clearly the primary fallacy of declaring human breathing as an emissions source causing AGW is the double counting fallacy. But since agriculture can be done in many many ways, and not all require nitrogent fertilizers made from fossil fuels, the hasty generalization is flawed. More importantly, it does not lead to any solutions.

Address the complex nature of agriculture does indeed suggest many solutions. So your flawed reasoning is not useful in any reasonable AGW discussion that includes potential solutions.

Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

antjrk at 11:24 AM on 29 May, 2020

Tokenterprises @133
MA Rodger @134

I would like to make an argument on human exhalation in much simpler form on the following premises using inductive reasoning:

1. Sustaining of life requires exhalation.
Stopping of exhalation terminates life.
2. Sustaining life of 7.5 billion people on Earth requires fertilizers.
3. Fertilizers are produced using fossil fuels.
4. Fossil fuels used in fertilizers production contributes to concentration of CO2 in atmosphere.

If we agreed to above premises the general conclusion has to be: supporting life of more than 7 billions people on the Earth requires emission of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels to atmosphere. Therefore, in order to sustain human civilization human exhalation has to influence amount of CO2 in atmosphere.

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Eclectic at 21:55 PM on 20 January, 2020

Markoh @84 , read this thread's OP (both the basic and intermediate form) for some detailed information. You will also find much of interest in the subsequent comments.

The short answer is the combination of acidity & carbonate & bicarbonate balances, with the gradually-evolved capabilities of organisms to produce calcite and/or aragonite structures (bound in organic matrices that are properly suited to the conditions). The rapidity of change in modern ocean chemistry ~ is the big problem. The rapidity of change is outstripping the ability of organisms to evolve to meet the new circumstances. Some organisms do okay, some are adversely affected . . . and the whole ocean ecology worsens (in the "short term" of a few thousand years). It's not just the shell-forming creatures, but the huge pyramid of fish species etcetera resting on the calcium-users.

If you are thinking of purely relevance to humans, then the problem is that we have a huge population ~ and where many have a high proportion of marine diet for protein.

If I may quote from a NOAA fact sheet :-

"Ocean acidification is an often overlooked consequence of humankind's release of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. Excess carbon dioxide enters the ocean and reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which decreases ocean pH ... and lowers carbonate ion concentrations. Organisms such as corals, clams, oysters, and some plankton use carbonate ions to create their shells and skeletons. Decreases in carbonate ion concentrations will make it difficult to form hard structures, particularly for juveniles. Ocean acidification may cause some organisms to die, reproduce less successfully, or leave an area. Other organisms such as seagrass and some plankton may do better in oceans affected by ocean acidification because they use carbon dioxide to photosynthesize, but do not require carbonate ions to survive. Ocean ecosystem diversity and ecosystem services may therefore change dramatically from ocean acidification."

[my bold]

The second problem : is that we don't yet have a firm idea of how bad it would all get, for humans as well as the ocean ecology. And as the saying goes ~ it would foolish to gamble big-time with Planet-A.

Markoh, I don't know whether you've see it, but there's an old movie "Soylent Green" [a mixture of very good and very "corny"] . . . classic Sci-Fi . . . set in the "near future" ~ grossly over-populated world, food shortages, major civil unrest, deteriorating farmlands (with armed guards). Suicide is almost a patriotic duty. In one of the final scenes, the hero learns a State Secret : the oceans are dying.

That concept was an over-dramatic fantasy, for a 1973 movie. But more worrying, today.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Doug_C at 06:51 AM on 20 January, 2020

michael sweet @131

I fully disagree with your entire position on nuclear power and the LNT which was the result of Cold War politics not sound science.

It Is Time to Move Beyond the Linear No-Threshold Theory for Low-Dose Radiation Protection

Considering the fact that we are all exposed to ionizing radiation and all life has been from the start of life almost 4 billion years ago on an Earth that had far higher levels of ionizing radiation, how likely is that ionizing radiation is a risk down to a zero dose rate.

The LNT model of risk from ionizing radiation was a response to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the radiophobia that has resulted has been used by a sector that presents an actualy existential threat to life itself on Earth while at the same time causing the early deaths of millions of people a year from air pollution alone before we look at all the other negative impacts of fossil fuels including the wars that are often rooted in the conflicts over fossil fuels. Donald Trump just stated it is an American goal to seize Syrian oil deposits, a war crime.

When we look at the worst scenario nuclear reactor accident with a reactor type that will never be built again as was a function of the lack of competence and respect for safety by the regime that built it, the direct impacts to people is still a tiny fraction of what we accept from fossil fuels daily.

They don't even know how many people died from the Chernobyl accident becaused the increased rates of cancer even under the LNT are so small in relation to the other background causes. The highest estimates are about 500 people. That is about 1/23rd of the deaths that are caused by fossil fuels generated air pollution daily.

Anti-nuclear activists like Helen Caldicott have made totally unsupported claims that close to 1 million deaths resulted from the Chernobyl accident, contradicting even their own ealier claims.

Nuclear opponents have a moral duty to get their facts straight

Arnie Gundersen was making almost the same claims about the Fukushima accident.

Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown Could Result in 1 Million Cases of Cancer

What exactly are you afraid of with nuclear power, it's clear that more than a few anti-nuclear activists are not basing their hysterical claims on science or reality itself.

Based on the massively exagerated claims by people who treat all ionizing radiation as an almost inevitable death sentence you'd think that people exposed to the most extreme human generated forms would all die very early deaths.

Let's start with Chernobyl and the several hundred emergency response personnel who were working next to an exposed nuclear core on fire

Health effects in those with acute radiation sickness from the Chernobyl accident.

Of those hundreds of personnel, 134 were diagnosed with ARS, should be and immediate death sentence based on the conventional "wisdom" that holds what an extreme threa to life all ionizing radiation is.

Of those 134 people, 29 died in the following months, mostly from the same kind of skin infections third degree burn victims would. In this case it was the beta burns from the intense radiation.

By 2001 a further 14 had died, does that sound like the death sentence that mainstream radiophobia would have us all treat any IR exposure as.

In a much less savory case who' ethics I'm not going to debate as I think what was done was deplorable, people diagnosed with terminal illnesses in the US were administered without their knowledge plutonium, the "most dangerous" substance on Earth going by the kind of treatment that you claim is based on sound science.

Some of them were misdiagnised and lived for decades with plutonium in their bodies.

Human Plutonium Injection Experiments

I don't work in the nuclear sector, I don't even have a degree, a serious disability has severely limited my life. I don't have children, I do have many nieces and nephews and the world we are leaving for them causes me anguish.

If I can figure out how broken the LNT model is and how totally irrational our entire approach to nuclear power is by book from libraries and online resources, then what does that say about the entire field of science that is still struggling to do anything about this nightmare we are all caught up in.

Some scientists like Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen and Tim Ball have and still, used their credientials and standing to totally distort the existential threat we all face from fossil fuels climate change. And yet they are still treated as part of this profession.

I have been taking verbal abuse from the people who they feed their intellectual fraud to online for years in a attempt to advocate for some form of sanity including from Tim Ball at WUWT because I dared to point out that his claims that water vapour were the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere was falacious as could be seen by the very title of his article. It there as a vapour not a gas and therefore isn't stable without the presense of another persisent gas namely carbon dioxide. His response and the many people who chimed in were abusive to say the least. But isn't that the point, to eliminate any opposition to your position no matter the cost to others.

Unlikely as I thought it to be, I find myself facing the same kind of treatment here.

I don't care for your baseless ad hominem against me because I simply want life not death to dominate our future.

As the subtext of your comment is that I and my views are simply not welcome here I won't frequent this site again and will treat it in the end like I do WUWT. As a meaningless spinning of wheels to comfort people as nothing real is done to save ourselves from an existential threat of our own making.

I'll go with the insights of some of the most brilliant scientists to have lived like Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg who both held that nuclear power would be our salvation.

I simply have no time for people who are fomenting the same kind of intellectual fraud that has given us anti-vaxxers.

The Harmful and Fraudulent Basis for the LNT Assumption

At some point we are going to realize that views like yours are what is helping to kill us all, I just hope it's before it's to late to build the tens of thousands of nuclear reactors that we actually need to replace all fossil fuels.

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Doug_C at 11:45 AM on 15 January, 2020

TomJanson @18

From geogrpahically isolated droughts and heat waves, my point is this is global in scale and we are seeing the exact same effects across the planet that is entirely consistent with climate change as forced by the massive use of fossil fuels.

Which is also entirely consistent with the scientific evidence that the Earth is fact warming due to all the carbon dioxide we emit and other large scale human changes to the Earth.

10 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable

We already have a perfectily valid explanation for what is happening including the increase in catastrophic extreme weather events like severe droughts and the wildfires that can follow, why look for something much less likely.

Expecially since the time to actually mitigate this unfolding catastrophe is rapidly running out.... if it hasn't already.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

MA Rodger at 23:56 PM on 26 December, 2019

Dave Evans @84,

The Wattsupian nonsense from Nov 2018 you ask about doesn't appear to have been de-bunked but the major slight-of-hand employed by the denialist-&-nonsense-author Angus MacFarlane has been de-bunked by SkS.

The Nov 2018 nonsense purports to itself de-bunk Peterson et al (2008) which is the main evidence base for the OP above. [The co-authors seem to have been overlooked by the OP above who call it Peterson 2008.] In directly challenging Peterson et al, the Wattsupian denier reclasifies 20% of the surveyed papers cited by Peterson et al (14 of the 66 re-assessed with 5 Peterson et al citations not assessed) and thus attempts to convert the result from 7 'cooling', 20 'neutral' and 44 'warming' into 16 'cooling', 19 'neutral' and 36 'warming'. This is not greating different and certainly does not support the contention that there was a scientific global cooling concensus during the 1970s.

To provide more fire-power, the Wattsupian denilaist adds extra citations to the survey - two which he found for himself (again not a level of evidence that would change the Peterson et al result) and an additional 117 papers gleaned from an earlier denialist attempt to debunk Peterson et al. It is only with this extra denialist fire-power from 2016 that anything like the number of citations can be obtained to overcome the Peterson et al result. This 2016 nonsense has been debunked in a two-park SkS post here & here.

The general nonsense in this 2016 denialist blather is possible best summed up by the denialistical use of the 1974 CIA document which considers the global food supply and within this considers climate as potentially a major factor. Global cooling is presented as a potential increase in risk to an adequate global food supply. There is no 'consensus' being waved that global cooling is expected. Instead they cite HH Lamb but ignore Lamb's view at that time in the mid-1970s that "On balance, the effects of increased carbon dioxide on climate is almost certainly in the direction of warming but is probably much smaller than the estimates which have commonly been accepted." As this may sound itself a little 'denialist' to modern ears, I should all that the 1977 book containing this quote had added into its 1984 preface:-

"It is to be noted here that there is no necessary contradiction between forecast expectations of (a) some renewed (or continuation of) slight cooling of world climate for some years to come, e.g. from volcanic or solar activity variations; (b) an abrupt warming due to the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, lasting some centuries until fossil fuels are exhausted and a while thereafter; and this followed in turn by (c) a glaciation lasting (like the previous ones) for many thousands of years.” [my bold]

The evidence-base for the CIA document is set out in its Annex II is based on the work of one scientist, Reid Bryson who did continue to find it beyond his abilities to accept the idea of AGW as a problem that needed tackling. So even though the 1974 CIA document runs with global cooling, a worst-case scenario, there is no scientific consensus backing it up.

The other study cited by the 2016 nonsense is Stewart & Glantz (1985) which talks of an emerging AGW-warming consensus but itself analyses the conclusions of a 1978 study on climate projection to the year 2000. This 1978 study would presumably have been advised by any 'cooling' concensus had such a thing existed in the mid-1970s. So their conclusions will be of interest:-

"The derived climate scenarios manifest a broad range of perceptions about possible temperature trends to the end of this century, but suggest as most likely a climate resembling the average for the past 30 years.- Collectively, the respondents tended to anticipate a slight global warming rather than a cooling. More specifically, their assessments pointed toward only one chance in five that, changes in average global temperatures will fall outside the range of -0.3°C to +0.6°C, although any temperature change was generally perceived as-being amplified in the higher latitudes of both hemiipheres."

So here the 1970s view was more towards 'warming' than 'cooling' although I note the 'warming' opinion prevailed as warming 1975-2000 was +0.5°C.

And today we see nothing but blather in that Nov 2018 Wattsupian whittering. It is ever thus there on the remote planetoid Wattsupia.

The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

nigelj at 06:21 AM on 26 December, 2019

rayates55 @8 says "Yes, it (The Stern Report) said that "cutting carbon emissions so that carbon dioxide peaked in the range of 450-550 parts per million would cost 1 percent of the GDP annually". BUT, this report was produced 13 YEARS ago! Things are much, much worse now. Also, 550ppm CO2 is itself a catastrophic level."

The Stern Report is about the costs and speed to replace fossil fuel electricity grids with renewable energy grids and so on. From memory it was based on getting to net zero by 2050, and so costs 1% per year to do that based on a period of about 44 years, and this is now shortened to 31 years, so your 1% number becomes something like 1.5% each year.

1.5% per year is still an achievable number. This is only 1.5% of global economic output each year. Its about what a typical family spends on treat foods and luxuries each year, its about what countries spend on their military, its much less than what is spent on education or healthcare. And it would be easy to find 1.5% of gdp without loss of living standards just by making some efficiencies - if we wanted.

I agree things are worse now than Stern anticipated, so double the 1.5% number if you want. This is realistic and is still doable.

Check my maths and assumptions etc, maybe its wrong, but no arm waving please. Provide details.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

Daniel Bailey at 11:26 AM on 8 November, 2019

That the climate changed naturally before the impacts of humans became the dominant forcing of climate is uncontentious.

That the impacts of human activities are now the dominant forcing of climate is equally uncontentious, from a scientific basis.

Scientists have evaluated all natural forcings and factors capable of driving the Earth's climate to change, including the slow, long-term changes in the Earth’s movement around the Sun (Milankovitch cycles or orbital forcings), and it is only when the anthropogenic forcing is included that the observed and ongoing warming since 1750 can be explained.

Natural vs Anthropogenic Climate Forcings, per the NCA4, Volume 2, in 2018:

Forcings

Scientists have also quantified the warming caused by human activities since preindustrial times and compared that to natural temperature forcings.

Changes in the sun's output falling on the Earth from 1750-2011 are about 0.05 Watts/meter squared.

By comparison, human activities from 1750-2011 warm the Earth by about 2.83 Watts/meter squared (AR5, WG1, Chapter 8, section 8.3.2, p. 676).

What this means is that the warming driven by the GHGs coming from the human burning of fossil fuels since 1750 is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval.

Forcings

In the early 20th century human activities caused about one-third of the observed warming and most of the rest was due to low volcanic activity. Since about 1950 it's all humans and their activities.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0555.1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.522

Further, the detection of the human fingerprint in the observed tropospheric warming caused by the increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases like CO2 has reached 6-sigma levels of accuracy.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0424-x

There have been many, many scientific studies over the past 175 years examining the properties of greenhouse gases, the radiative physics of carbon dioxide and the role it plays in the Earth’s atmosphere. One of the most comprehensive, recent and openly-accessible is the US 4th National Climate Assessment (Volume 1, released in 2017 and Volume 2, released in 2018). You can download the whole thing or by chapter:

https://science2017.globalchange.gov/
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/

https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/downloads/

FAQ’s:
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/appendix-5/#section-1

In short, human activities (primarily via the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed the globe, which in turn are impacting the Earth’s climate.

Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks

Daniel Bailey at 09:26 AM on 16 October, 2019

"there is nothing skeptical here with all that about carbon dioxide levels causing climate change"

That the climate changed naturally before the impacts of humans became the dominant forcing of climate is uncontentious.

That the impacts of human activities are now the dominant forcing of climate is equally uncontentious, from a scientific basis.

Scientists (the actual skeptics) have evaluated all natural forcings and factors capable of driving the Earth's climate to change, including the slow, long-term changes in the Earth’s movement around the Sun (Milankovitch cycles or orbital forcings), and it is only when the anthropogenic forcing is included that the observed and ongoing warming since 1750 can be explained.

Natural vs Anthropogenic Climate Forcings, per the NCA4, Volume 2, in 2018:

Causes

Scientists have also quantified the warming caused by human activities since preindustrial times and compared that to natural temperature forcings.

Changes in the sun's output falling on the Earth from 1750-2011 are about 0.05 Watts/meter squared.

By comparison, human activities from 1750-2011 warm the Earth by about 2.83 Watts/meter squared (AR5, WG1, Chapter 8, section 8.3.2, p. 676).

LINK

In the early 20th century human activities caused about one-third of the observed warming and most of the rest was due to low volcanic activity. Since about 1950 it's all humans and their activities.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0555.1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.522

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0424-x

https://science2017.globalchange.gov/
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/

https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/downloads/

FAQ’s:
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/appendix-5/#section-1

In short, human activities (primarily via the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed the globe, which in turn are impacting the Earth’s climate.

Please demonstrate actual skepticism by reading the furnished sources before replying.

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #41

william5331 at 04:53 AM on 14 October, 2019

Doesn't it seem a little foolish to be talking about removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when we are still subsidizing fossil fuel companies. We will continue to do so as long as the election of politicians depends on money from these same fossil fuel companies. Make this illegal and perhaps, just perhaps, the politicians could be pursuaded to stop these subsidies and we would pick up the pace of transition to renewables. Already wind and solar are more economic than fossil fuel.

Residence Time and Prof Essenhigh

MA Rodger at 19:03 PM on 23 August, 2019

daveburton @27,

The problem is as described by Eclectic @28&30. Roy Spencer is not renowned for errorless analysis. This 2018 blog of Spencer's you rely on is no more than an exercise in curve-fitting that leads to the ridiculous conclusion that if humanity restricts itself to pumping 10Gt(C)/year of CO2 into the atmosphere (as it did in 2018), continuing year-after-year for ever-&-ever-&-ever, the atmospheric CO2 level will stablise over 200 years at 500ppm(v) CO2.

This is plainly nonsense. Where does all this extra carbon accumulate? And if paleoclimate studies show atmospheric CO2 levels in past eons at 2,000ppm for over a hundred million years, were did the carbon come from to maintain such levels? According to Spencer's model, simply to maintain it at 500ppm over such a period would require emissions upward of 1Zt(C). I'm pretty sure the planet doesn't contain that much carbon!!

You are perhaps correct to suggest that many misinterpret the Airbourne Fraction which is simply a product of our rising emissions. It is not a subject much discussed beyond the Af concept itself. In terms of the draw-down mechanism, Af is a very poor concept to start from. So in Af terms in 2018, that 57% of 2018 CO2 emissions drawn-down out of the atmosphere is better seen as comprising something like a draw-down of 4% of the emissions 2014-18, 2.5% of the emissions 1999-2013, 0.6% of the emissions 1919-98, etc. These approximate numbers I obtain by scaling one of the 1000_cswv plots in Fig 1 of Archer et al (2009) 'Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide' which models a single 1,000Gt(C) impulse. The draw-down dynamics under the gradual release of AGW mean these numbers will not entirely match the AGW numbers, but they do well enough as a rough guide.

Models are unreliable

MA Rodger at 00:39 AM on 14 August, 2019

I had a second, more focused look at Sarkomaa & Ruottu (2019) and find it a worthless piece of work.

Clouded by ♥ a confusing use of English & ♥ not-scientific presentation, these elderly Finnish professors provide an account riven with ♥ unsupported but controversial assertions, ♥ silly mathematical constructs and ♥ mathematical models that entirely fail to capture the workings of climate (let alone AGW).

Such a conclusion does need some further demonstrating.

......

♥I don't think their poor use of English needs demonstrating.

♥The lack of scientific presentation is shown many times. As an instance, they insist (p6) that:-

"If all linear radiation coefficients of clouds are set zero, the SRclimate model of Appendix 4 [and of their design] calculates about 100 W/m2 increase of solar energy flux to the ground and about 13 °C increase of the mean temperature of the ground. This agrees with the generally known fact that when cloud comes in front of the sun temperature decreases. Thus, IPCC’s climate change claim should be based on calculations with negative, instead of the positive cloud feedbacks."

Their "generally known fact" is of course simplistic nonsense and the absence of "general agreement" is all too evident in Zelinka et al (2017), a reference cited by Sarkomaa & Ruottu. Yet this diparity is not addressed by Sarkomaa & Ruottu who instead treat us to mention of a peurile interchange with Finish climatologists (p6).

♥The lack of science extends to a large number of obviously unsupported controversial assertions. An example:-

"Figure 1[*] Figure shows that the mean temperature of the ground has been always varied and it is sure, that the variation is going to continue. During the latest 50 thousand years the mean temperature of the ground has increased about 6 ºC and that the increase is going on. On long term decreasing trend can be noticed which is due to inevitable decrease of nuclear reactions in the sun. The hundreds year trends are due to variation of surface temperature of the sun. These variations have nothing to do with CO2 concentration in the atmosphere."

[* on Page 20. Figure plotting global temperatures of last 2Myr based on Snyder (2016), Zachos et al (2008), Lisiecki & Raymo (2005) and 800kyr of Vostok ice core data scaled at 1:2. These first two references contradict the "nothing to do with CO2" assertion.]

♥The nonsense is aided by the use of silly mathematical calculations presented seemingly for no reason. Their equation 4.16a p52 presents an easily understandable example, it being a formula for an average global temperature for time t=0 to t=a obtained by integration over the surface of a sphere. Quite how anyone would obtain formula to use in such an integration of average temperature of a planet (Sarkomaa & Ruottu describe it as being "entirely impossible") or for what purpose they present the formula is not explained.

♥Perhaps their main conclusion is expressed within their blog commentary of their analysis which translated @1145:-

"It follows from Planck's Law and the equation for spectral radiance that the effect of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on global temperatures is asymptotic, not progressive."

Here Planck's Law is what within AGW is usually expressed in climatology as the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship although here its exact application is not entirely clear.
"Spectral radiance" is described as "The basic physical concept of radiative heat transfer" (p66) and the "asymptotic" level (which is found to be 288K, the average global temperature which the modelling is set to) appears to be the equilibrium temperature which, of course, will be arrived-at in a manner "asymptotic, not progressive" (as in their eq 5.1) as the equilibrium temperature is approached. The modelling is then used to demonstrate that there will be no significant increase in surface temperature if there is more CO2 in surface air. The result should actually be zero because the air has not been allowed to increase in temperature (the AGW effect is not driven by surface phenomenon) and so cannot have any extra radiative effect to warm the surface. All that happens is the IR path-length decreases within the CO2 absorption bands at the same rate at which the amount of CO2 emiting this IR increases - thus zero effect.
Sarkomaa & Ruottu actually report that in the absence of other GHGs, the "increase of carbon dioxide concentration has strong influence on the mean temperature of the ground." Their Fig 5 p73 is missing the 0.0005 'multiplier' plot but the other plots would suggest a 'climate sensitivity' of 1.0ºC at 0.0005 but this value for 'sensitivity' looks to be increasing exponentially as the 'multiplier' decreases. So if the 'multiplier' were reduced to zero, climate sensitivity (for a CO2 doubling) would be infinite.
But with the 'multiplier' at 1 and GHGs properly represented in their model, the "increase of carbon dioxide concentration has practically no influence on the mean temperature of the ground." Yet, as stated above, given what they are apparently modelling (which is not climate sensitivity), the answer should be zero.

Models are unreliable

MA Rodger at 06:38 AM on 12 August, 2019

The article linked @1143 runs to ninety-three pages and is the work of a couple of rather old Mechanical Engineering Professors, Pertti Sarkomaa & Seppo Ruotu (whose surname translates as 'Swedish'). Their work in thermodynamics explains their easy use of maths.

At first glance, their modelling does not appear to address the mechanisms of AGW so if they conclude that increased CO2 is not an agent of warming, that would be no surprise. The article is not well presented with presumably some of the problem resulting from language difficulties.

An account of their work more easily understood is presented in a blog on the site that holds the up-load of the article linked @1143. (Its comment thread may be worth examining.) Of course, the blog-page is in Finnish but that is no great barrier in this day & age. The blog runs to 700 words, not an impossible length for an SkS thread. A translation of it runs:-

Professors: The IPCC Climate Hysteria is a religion without logic

Professors Pertti Sarkomaa (Professor of Heat and Flow Technology and Combustion Engineering) and Seppo Ruottu (Professor Emeritus of Technical Thermodynamics) approached the Rural Media and sent their thoughts on the IPCC report, the IPCC Climate Hysteria. In their view, the IPCC's climate change projections are based on completely erroneous calculations.

IPCC calculations are based on climate models

The calculations in the IPCC monitoring reports are based on climate models that use heuristic parameters such as radiation constraint, cloud feedback, and climate sensitivity that have no physical equivalent or objectively correct value and are not known, required, or permitted by the exact laws of flow and thermal dynamics. The use of said heuristic quantities in climate models is in itself a fatal mistake and indicates that their users do not understand flow and thermal dynamics.

The meteorological scientific community recognizes that, despite decades of research, there is no certainty about the hallmark of cloud feedback. Every common sense person understands that even if the sign of a key parameter of a mathematical model is unknown, the results produced by the model are incorrect. Because cloud feedback is a heuristic that has no physical equivalent, there is no objectively correct value that can be determined. The decades-long study of Cloud Feedback is the most incomprehensible blunder in modern science.

Positive cloud feedback values have been used in the calculations accepted by the IPCC so that a staggering increase in carbon dioxide concentration from 300 ppm to 600 ppm, which would not actually occur, would increase the global mean global equilibrium temperature generated by the calculations by 2-5 ℃. Meteorologists call this change in temperature sensitive to climate sensitivity.

With positive cloud returns from calculations approved by the IPCC, the sensitivity of the climate is two to five times the warming of the lower atmosphere caused by the actual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from 280 ppm to the present 410 ppm. So climate sensitivity depends entirely on the cloud response you choose.

It follows from Planck's Law and the equation for spectral radiance that the effect of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on global temperatures is asymptotic, not progressive. If the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration were to increase by the next 130 ppm, the effect of the increase on global average temperatures would be smaller than the increase that had already occurred. The climate sensitivity of the IPCC calculations is completely unrealistic.

Clouds are known to reduce the average solar energy flux on the Earth's surface by about 100 W / m2, so negative calculations should have been used instead of positives in calculations approved by the IPCC. Thus, the IPCC's climate change projections are based on completely erroneous calculations. When the effect of carbon dioxide on global average temperatures is calculated in accordance with the laws of flow and thermal dynamics, the effect is found to be insignificant.

We have provided our calculations to leading Finnish meteorological experts and asked them to prove their potential errors. No errors have been addressed. Nonetheless, the meteorologists who have committed themselves to the IPCC claim are categorically dogmatic, ”say Finnish professors Pertti Sarkomaa and Seppo Ruottu.

Carbon dioxide has no effect on global warming

The climate has changed during the Earth's existence and in the future. It is affected by a plurality of randomly variable quantities with their mutual random interconnections.

According to our research, the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide on surface and ground-level temperature is insignificant, even if the atmospheric carbon dioxide content doubles compared to the present one. The change would be only a few hundredths of a degree Celsius.

According to our understanding, e.g. The IPCC climate models that underlie the Paris Climate Convention and the climate projections and key measures to "save the world" derived from them are both erroneous and illogical.

The efforts of the IPCC to minimize carbon in the natural cycle and the atmosphere and to switch from fossil fuels to electricity and mechanical energy generation to biofuels will lead to a reduction in energy and food production and biodiversity. Long-term adherence to the IPCC's aspirations and recommendations will lead to mankind's disaster as fossil fuels run out over the next 100 years.

Therefore, the remaining fossil fuels should be used in such a way that, when depleted, the Earth's carbon cycle, which sustains life in the world, produces the greatest amount of biodiversity-compatible biomass.

In Lappeenranta 03.08.2019, Best regards. Pertti Sarkomaa Seppo Ruottu - Professori, TKT.

Climate's changed before

Daniel Bailey at 02:47 AM on 24 July, 2019

I'll address a portion of that, now that scaddenp and MA Rodger already weighed in on the rest.

"The irrefutable scientific evidence also shows that in all 8 recorded Inter-Glacial Periods, the sea levels rose 3 meters to as much as 14 meters, even when CO2 levels were 260 ppm to 280 ppm CO2."

Again, saying that there is irrefutable evidence pretty much ensures that he's making that claim up. If he had such "irrefutable scientific evidence", he'd have cited it.

Part of the fallacy on display here is the presumption that interglacials are interchangeable and equal. They are not. They are the confluence of orbital factors and the "memory" of the climate over time (climate memory has been demonstrated to extend some 800,000 years or more, depending upon the metric in question). A consilience of studies point out that the best analogue for the modern Holocene Interglacial is MIS (Marine Isotope Stage) 19 (per Giaccio et al 2015, Yin and Berger 2015, Vavrus et al 2018, etc).

Looking at the 5 most recent interglacials, we see that sea levels are not identical (from Grant et al 2014, Figure 2):

Grant 14, Fig 2

From Dutton et al 2015, Figure 1, we see that sea levels from previous interglacials are tightly tied to temperatures...and we know from innumerable studies that global temperatures are tightly intercorrelated with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels:

Dutton 15, Fig 1

However, emerging evidence (from Grant 2019) for that Mid-Pliocene sea level on the very right-side of Dutton 15, Figure 1 above is that sea levels associated with an atmospheric composition of carbon dioxide like today saw a contribution of about 20 meters just from the Antarctic Ice Sheet by itself. I believe Rob DeConto is coming out with a similar paper soon on that subject.

Grant 2019, Fig 6.10

Figure 6.10 The Whanganui RSL record on the left with the precession-paced MPWP and obliquity-paced late Pliocene sections highlighted with different GIS, AIS and NHIS configurations and SLE illustrated for interglacial and glacial extreme conditions relative to present-day Antarctica (0 m; central figure). The anti-phased 15 m amplitudes of the MPWP are interpreted as 5 m from GIS offset by ~20 m from AIS present day to peak interglacial. Higher amplitudes would then include larger-than-present AIS (nearing LGM; Clarke and Tarasov, 2014). While the late Pliocene amplitudes include increasing NHIS contributions and smaller interglacial configurations.

To sum for this portion, previous interglacials are as unique as are your fingerprints, but contain similarities constrained by physics, with sea levels of the time correlated with global temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

At present, the human burning of fossil fuels is driving an atmospheric composition and temperature associated with a time when sea levels were over 20 meters higher than at present, imperiling coastal port cities around the world and threatening areas where over 2 billion people currently live.

Climate's changed before

MA Rodger at 23:32 PM on 17 June, 2019

TVC15 @745,

Your denier is of course spouting nonsense. But perhaps it would be helpful to know how to respond to him other than just asking him to generally explain his nonsense.

I would ask your denialist troll how long he expects the effects of AGW to last. Does he expect CO2 levels to remain for ever? That would be very wrong. Or perhaps only a few tens-of-thousands of years which would be more correct? That, of course, is the time-scale that ice-ages operate on.
Ice ages are, of course, mainly driven by changing albedo (due to the changing levels of ice reflecting changing amounts of sunlight back into space). CO2 is not the primary driver.

For a bit more background, we can look back at those ice-age CO2 levels.

During the last interglacial (the Eemian) the measured peak-CO2 was 287ppm back 128,400 years before present. (This is from EPIC Dome C ice core data.) From this peak, CO2 dropped to 262ppm in the following 1,240 year, a drop which was the first part of a set of oscillations measured between 280ppm and 260ppm that continued for 15,000 years after the peak. It was only following those oscillations that CO2 began to fall back towards 200ppm, the bulk of this decline (a drop to 230ppm) taking 7,500 years.

We can compare the drop from that ice-age driven CO2 pertubation with the expected future of our own CO2 anthropogenic pertubation. That ice-age pertubation was (287 - 195 =) +102ppm over 8,000 years while out anthropogeinc pertubation is so-far (410 - 280 =) +130ppm over roughly 100 years.
The likes of Archer et al (2009) 'Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide' suggest that roughly 80% of an instant CO2 pertubation would be absorbed into the oceans in roughly 1,000 years. (Lord et al 2016 Fig 4 suggests it would be a little higher for our present 600Gt(C) level of emissions, perhaps 87%.) About 55% of our anthropogenic pertubation has already been absorbed so if our CO2 emissions stopped we would expect today's CO2 levels to drop roughly 70ppm over 1,000 years or so, being absorbed mainly within the oceans. But the rise of the ice-age pertubation of the Eemian was far slower than our pertubation (8,00y against 100y) so we can simplistically assume that all the +102ppm represents that remainng 20% of the actual ice-aged-forced emissions. (In reality, much of the CO2 in the ice-age pertubation has been driven from the oceans so will not be re-absorbed there over such timescales.)

That remaining 20% (& bulk of the Eemian +105ppm) is expected would slowly be absorbed over following millennia, but surely not as quickly that 7,500 year Eemian period which saw perhaps a 10% drop (of the assumed total ice-age pertubation). This would concur with the proposed reversal of much of the pre-Eemian ice-age driven CO2 increase as the new ice-age develops, when the oceans begin to re-absorb CO2, along with a whole lot of other mechanisms that operate on CO2 through the ice-age cycles.

Climate's changed before

MA Rodger at 20:17 PM on 14 June, 2019

TVC15 @743,

Hansen's book 'Storms of my Grandchildren' is not a scientific work and I have been critical of it for not being scientifc while making overly-bold statements on Sea Level Rise, statements which others take-&-use as being scientific statements. But with both SLR and this Venus Syndrome issue Hansen has made good by later publishing the science. With respect to the Venus Syndrome issue, he references in the Colombia Uni blog (linked @741) the forth-coming paper Hansen et al (2013) 'Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide' and in particular Fig 7 (below) which shows that above 16 x 310ppm (5,000ppm) the tropopause disappears (the atmosphere stops getting warmer through the stratosphere) which would see the Earth's water begin to leach out into space.

Hansen et al 2013 Fig 7

I wouldn't be sure whether burning all the fossil fuel reserves and then precipitating CO2 emissions from the biosphere etc would manage to achieve 5,000ppm CO2 but it is all rather academic. The damage to humanity, indeed to life on Earth would be unconscionable a long way before 5,000ppm CO2 is reached.

Humans are greening the planet, but the implications are complicated

One Planet Only Forever at 00:56 AM on 21 March, 2019

jzk,

I will open with a Good Reason to 'qualify the greening benefit of increasing CO2". The article includes the following point.

"About one quarter of the carbon dioxide placed annually into the atmosphere by fossil fuel combustion has been hypothesized to be removed through enhanced vegetation growth and accumulation of organic carbon in land ecosystems."

That means that increased CO2 from burning fossil fuels is only partially affected by increased plant growth. The greening does not fully neutralize the new CO2 introduced to the recycling environment by burning buried ancient hydrocarbons. As a result, climate change impacts of the warming that are harmful to future generations and difficult for them to adapt will happen (is happening) in spite of the greening.

The article also included points about the potential that the added greening may not be helpful for humans.

I will close with a comment regarding "..."but fossil fuel provides needed electricity for the world's poor" or any other benefit."

Any developed perceptions of benefit from a harmful and unsustainable activity like the burning of fossil fuels is undeniably unsustainable into the future, and harmful to the future. So, the continuation of attempts by people to personally benefit from burning fossil fuels can be argued to be creating a larger future correction that will require very significant corrections of developed perceptions of status and corrections of perceptions of what is Helpful.

We already see the reality of that understanding. The lack of responsible actions by the supposed leaders of the planet through the past 30 years has created more future harm, and has created a requirement for a more dramatic correction of what has developed irder to responsibly limit the harm done to the future of humanity.

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #8

alonerock at 01:21 AM on 25 February, 2019

Hi All-

Please comment on Moore's text below so that I can refute his opinions with facts in an argument I am having with a friend about its content:

Patrick Moore Comments to refute/clarify:
CO2 lags temperature by an average of 800 years during the most recent 400,000-year period, indicating that temperature is the cause, as the cause never comes after the effect.
Looking at the past 50,000 years of temperature and CO2 we can see that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature. This is as one could expect, as the Milankovitch cycles are far more likely to cause a change in temperature than a change in CO2. And a change in the temperature is far more likely to cause a change in CO2 due to outgassing of CO2 from the oceans during warmer times and an ingassing (absorption) of CO2 during colder periods. Yet climate alarmists persist in insisting that CO2 is causing the change in temperature, despite the illogical nature of that assertion.
. Will our CO2 emissions stave off another glaciation as James Lovelock has suggested? There doesn’t seem to be much hope of that so far, as despite 1/3 of all our CO2 emissions being released during the past 18 years the UK Met Office contends there has been no statistically significant warming during this century.
By 7,000 years ago all the low-altitude, mid-latitude glaciers had melted. There is no consensus about the variation in sea level since then although many scientists have concluded that the sea level was higher than today during the Holocene Thermal optimum from 9,000 to 5,000 years ago when the Sahara was green. The sea level may also have been higher than today during the Medieval Warm Period.
Coming back to the relationship between temperature and CO2 in the modern era we can see that temperature has risen at a steady slow rate in Central England since 1700 while human CO2 emissions were not relevant until 1850 and then began an exponential rise after 1950. This is not indicative of a direct causal relationship between the two. After freezing over regularly during the Little Ice Age the River Thames froze for the last time in 1814, as the Earth moved into what might be called the Modern Warm Period.
The IPCC states it is “extremely likely” that human emissions have been the dominant cause of global warming “since the mid-20th century”, that is since 1950. They claim that “extremely” means 95% certain, even though the number 95 was simply plucked from the air like an act of magic. And “likely” is not a scientific word but rather indicative of a judgment, another word for an opinion.
There was a 30-year period of warming from 1910-1940, then a cooling from 1940 to 1970, just as CO2 emissions began to rise exponentially, and then a 30-year warming from 1970-2000 that was very similar in duration and temperature rise to the rise from 1910-1940. One may then ask “what caused the increase in temperature from 1910-1940 if it was not human emissions? And if it was natural factors how do we know that the same natural factors were not responsible for the rise between 1970-2000.” You don’t need to go back millions of years to find the logical fallacy in the IPCC’s certainty that we are the villains in the piece.
Water is by far the most important greenhouse gas, and is the only molecule that is present in the atmosphere in all three states, gas, liquid, and solid. As a gas, water vapour is a greenhouse gas, but as a liquid and solid it is not. As a liquid water forms clouds, which send solar radiation back into space during the day and hold heat in at night. There is no possibility that computer models can predict the net effect of atmospheric water in a higher CO2 atmosphere. Yet warmists postulate that higher CO2 will result in positive feedback from water, thus magnifying the effect of CO2 alone by 2-3 times. Other scientists believe that water may have a neutral or negative feedback on CO2. The observational evidence from the early years of this century tends to reinforce the latter hypothesis.
Even at the today’s concentration of 400 ppm plants are relatively starved for nutrition. The optimum level of CO2 for plant growth is about 5 times higher, 2000 ppm, yet the alarmists warn it is already too high.
All the CO2 in the atmosphere has been created by outgassing from the Earth’s core during massive volcanic eruptions. This was much more prevalent in the early history of the Earth when the core was hotter than it is today. During the past 150 million years there has not been enough addition of CO2 to the atmosphere to offset the gradual losses due to burial in sediments.
Today, at just over 400 ppm, there are 850 billion tons of carbon as CO2 in the atmosphere. By comparison, when modern life-forms evolved over 500 million years ago there was nearly 15,000 billion tons of carbon in the atmosphere, 17 times today’s level. Plants and soils combined contain more than 2,000 billion tons of carbon, more that twice as much as the entire global atmosphere. The oceans contain 38,000 billion tons of carbon, as dissolved CO2, 45 times as much as in the atmosphere. Fossil fuels, which are made from plants that pulled CO2 from the atmosphere account for 5,000 – 10,000 billion tons of carbon, 6 – 12 times as much carbon as is in the atmosphere.
But the truly stunning number is the amount of carbon that has been sequestered from the atmosphere and turned into carbonaceous rocks. 100,000,000 billion tons, that’s one quadrillion tons of carbon, have been turned into stone by marine species that learned to make armour-plating for themselves by combining calcium and carbon into calcium carbonate. Limestone, chalk, and marble are all of life origin and amount to 99.9% of all the carbon ever present in the global atmosphere. The white cliffs of Dover are made of the calcium carbonate skeletons of coccolithophores, tiny marine phytoplankton.
The vast majority of the carbon dioxide that originated in the atmosphere has been sequestered and stored quite permanently in carbonaceous rocks where it cannot be used as food by plants.
Beginning 540 million years ago at the beginning of the Cambrian Period many marine species of invertebrates evolved the ability to control calcification and to build armour plating to protect their soft bodies. Shellfish such as clams and snails, corals, coccolithofores (phytoplankton) and foraminifera (zooplankton) began to combine carbon dioxide with calcium and thus to remove carbon from the life cycle as the shells sank into sediments; 100,000,000 billion tons of carbonaceous sediment. It is ironic that life itself, by devising a protective suit of armour, determined its own eventual demise by continuously removing CO2 from the atmosphere. This is carbon sequestration and storage writ large. These are the carbonaceous sediments that form the shale deposits from which we are fracking gas and oil today. And I add my support to those who say, “OK UK, get fracking”.
The past 150 million years has seen a steady drawing down of CO2 from the atmosphere. There are many components to this but what matters is the net effect, a removal on average of 37,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year for 150 million years. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was reduced by about 90% during this period. This means that volcanic emissions of CO2 have been outweighed by the loss of carbon to calcium carbonate sediments on a multi-million year basis.
If this trend continues CO2 will inevitably fall to levels that threaten the survival of plants, which require a minimum of 150 ppm to survive. If plants die all the animals, insects, and other invertebrates that depend on plants for their survival will also die.
How long will it be at the present level of CO2 depletion until most or all of life on Earth is threatened with extinction by lack of CO2 in the atmosphere?
During this Pleistocene Ice Age, CO2 tends to reach a minimum level when the successive glaciations reach their peak. During the last glaciation, which peaked 18,000 years ago, CO2 bottomed out at 180 ppm, extremely likely the lowest level CO2 has been in the history of the Earth. This is only 30 ppm above the level that plants begin to die. Paleontological research has demonstrated that even at 180 ppm there was a severe restriction of growth as plants began to starve. With the onset of the warmer interglacial period CO2 rebounded to 280 ppm. But even today, with human emissions causing CO2 to reach 400 ppm plants are still restricted in their growth rate, which would be much higher if CO2 were at 1000-2000 ppm.
Here is the shocking news. If humans had not begun to unlock some of the carbon stored as fossil fuels, all of which had been in the atmosphere as CO2 before sequestration by plants and animals, life on Earth would have soon been starved of this essential nutrient and would begin to die. Given the present trends of glaciations and interglacial periods this would likely have occurred less than 2 million years from today, a blink in nature’s eye, 0.05% of the 3.5 billion-year history of life.
No other species could have accomplished the task of putting some of the carbon back into the atmosphere that was taken out and locked in the Earth’s crust by plants and animals over the millennia.
It does boggle the mind in the face of our knowledge that the level of CO2 has
been steadily falling that human CO2 emissions are not universally acclaimed as a miracle of salvation. From direct observation we already know that the extreme predictions of CO2’s impact on global temperature are highly unlikely given that about one-third of all our CO2 emissions have been discharged during the past 18 years and there has been no statistically significant warming. And even if there were some additional warming that would surely be preferable to the
analysis of the historical record and the prediction of CO2 starvation based on the 150 million year trend. Ad hominem arguments about “deniers” need not apply. I submit that much of society has been collectively misled into believing that global CO2 and temperature are too high when the opposite is true for both. Does anyone deny that below 150 ppm CO2 that plants will die? Does anyone deny that the Earth has been in a 50 million-year cooling period and that this Pleistocene Ice Age is one of the coldest periods in the history of the planet?
If we assume human emissions have to date added some 200 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere, even if we ceased using fossil fuels today we have already bought another 5 million years for life on earth. But we will not stop using fossil fuels to power our civilization so it is likely that we can forestall plant starvation for lack of CO2 by at least 65 million years. Even when the fossil fuels have become scarce we have the quadrillion tons of carbon in carbonaceous rocks, which we can transform into lime and CO2 for the manufacture of cement. And we already know how to do that with solar energy or nuclear energy. This alone, regardless of fossil fuel consumption, will more than offset the loss of CO2 due to calcium carbonate burial in marine sediments. Without a doubt the human species has made it possible to prolong the survival of life on Earth for more than 100 million years. We are not the enemy of nature but its salvation.

Some of the world’s oil comes from my native country in the Canadian oil sands of northern Alberta. I had never worked with fossil fuel interests until I became incensed with the lies being spread about my country’s oil production in the capitals of our allies around the world. I visited the oil sands operations to find out for myself what was happening there.
It is true it’s not a pretty sight when the land is stripped bare to get at the sand so the oil can be removed from it. Canada is actually cleaning up the biggest natural oil spill in history, and making a profit from it. The oil was brought to the surface when the Rocky Mountains were thrust up by the colliding Pacific Plate. When the sand is returned back to the land 99% of the so-called “toxic oil” has been removed from it.
Anti-oil activists say the oil-sands operations are destroying the boreal forest of Canada. Canada’s boreal forest accounts for 10% of all the world’s forests and the oil-sands area is like a pimple on an elephant by comparison. By law, every square inch of land disturbed by oil-sands extraction must be returned to native boreal forest. When will cities like London, Brussels, and New York that have laid waste to the natural environment be returned to their native ecosystems?
The art and science of ecological restoration, or reclamation as it is called in the mining industry, is a well-established practice. The land is re-contoured, the original soil is put back, and native species of plants and trees are established. It is possible, by creating depressions where the land was flat, to increase biodiversity by making ponds and lakes where wetland plants, insects, and waterfowl can become established in the reclaimed landscape.
The tailings ponds where the cleaned sand is returned look ugly for a few years but are eventually reclaimed into grasslands. The Fort McKay First Nation is under contract to manage a herd of bison on a reclaimed tailings pond. Every tailings pond will be reclaimed in a similar manner when operations have been completed.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51

MA Rodger at 19:26 PM on 26 December, 2018

Evan @8,

You say:-

"However, the idea that the world will respond in a manner to cause CO2 to naturally start decreasing I see as wishful thinking (no offense meant)."

I do note you continue by describing "reversing an upward acceleration, ... move to a constant increase, ... Then we must decrease from there," so in some manner we do speak at cross-purposes.

Just to be clear, my talk of this natural process reducing CO2 levels: this year draws to a close and we will have emitted some 11.4Gt(C) of CO2 into the atmosphere over the year. Yet the atmospheric CO2 levels do not increase by 11.4/2.13=5.4ppm over the year. The levels of annual rise in CO2 are wobbly but there is on average 55% of our emissions disappeared, into the oceans & biosphere. This 11.4*0.55=6.27Gt(C) of drawdown is a response not only to this year's emissions but to previous years. The drawdown continues when "you stop emissions" eventually resulting in 80% of our emissions being disappeared over a millenia. (See Archer et al (2009) 'Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide') This is the process I describe @5, "once you stop emissions, the falling CO2 forcing would balance with the warming from the remaining un-balanced forcing leaving a roughly constant global temperature, even a cooling."

I could continue by pointing out that the global CO2 emissions calculated for recent years show little or zero increase, perhaps a sign that "upward acceleration" has ended, but some find this difficult to accept so I won't press the point.

Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.

Doug_C at 06:32 AM on 19 December, 2018

It all comes down to relative radiative forcings and right now the positive radiative forcing by rapidly increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide with the continued emissions of billions of tons of the gas a year overwhelms whatever negative forcing there may be from solar and other activities.

This is what denial is all about, pretending this forcing simply doesn't exist.

Unless someone comes up with a way to invalidate the Standard Model of how particles behave and interact then carbon dioxide is still going to absorb the EM radiation that is constantly being emitted by the Earth's surface and re-radiate about half of that intercepted heat back to the Earth's surface. The more CO2 we put into the air the warmer the Earth is going to get.

But because of the amount of money that is still tied up in the fossil fuel sector there are still some major palyers who will try and pull any rabbit they can from the hat to magically make this dynamic go away. And they just love the "The next Ice Age is Coming!!!" rabbit for the drama it evokes.

Climate change is not going away and every year we get closer to tipping points that are truly nasty in ecological, social and financial terms.

Australia - Moving to Renewable Energy

Doug_C at 18:00 PM on 13 December, 2018

The advantages to EVs are significant.

First off your "fuel" can be transported at near ligthspeed hundreds of miles with little risk, pollution and waste stream. And it weighs almost nothing.

EVs take that energy and deliver it directly and highly efficiently to the wheels meaning only a tiny fraction of the loss of potential energy we have with fossil fuel produced gas and diesel. And with so few moving parts the need for expensive after-market replacement parts is a tiny fraction with EVs compared to ICE vehicles.

And when the electricity generated for EV transportation is produced with low carbon renewables like solar and wind power that is a major step to an essential reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

One of the roadblocks so far has been battery pack cost and technological barriers. Wet lithium ion batteries do remove a lot of the risk associated with wet lithium metal batteries at the cost of about half the energy denisty, longer recharge cycles and shorter lifespan.

This does cause some incovenience to drivers as they have to plan for shorter range, longer "refueling" and at what speed to drive. The faster you go the quicker you draw down your charge and it drops very fast when EVs are operated at high performance levels.

What solid state lithium metal batteries will do is eventually significantly increase the energy density, lower the weight of the battery pack, increase range, decrease the recharge time and mostly remove the fire risk with the elimination of the flamable electrolytes in wet lithium ion batteries.

I think a decade from now there will be no comparison between ICE vehicles and the latest EVs that will have impressive range, much quicker recharging, much longer battery pack life and little of the risk of catastrophic discharge if the battery is damaged in an impact.

With inductive roadbeds it will be possible to charge your vehicle while driving in some schemes that have already been tested in places like New Zealand and London England.

The UK is testing out roads that charge electric cars as they go

Major new investment in wireless electric-charging roads

The future is electric with power provided by solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable utilized in ways that will simply drive innovation in ways we can't predict now.

The future for us all will be exceedingly dark if we stay the course with fossil fuels while the potential with alternatives could be very bright indeed if we choose.

Australia - Moving to Renewable Energy

Doug_C at 10:04 AM on 11 December, 2018

Australia seems idealy suited to a transition to low carbon renewable energy with plenty of sunlight and other energy resources. Grid scale electricity storage also has a number of different options which can be tailored to the required situation. Some like redox-flow batteries are only economical at the grid scale and can have a virtually unlimited lifespan.

How three battery types work in grid-scale energy storage systems

Australia also has vast geothermal potential at a relatively shallow depth in much of the central and nothern part of the nation.

Geothermal power in Australia

It's good to see that real change is taking place in Australia, but it also seems to be the case that like here in Canada there are still too many policy makers who are saying one thing and doing the opposite.

The global priority is to phase out all fossil fuels as quickly as is feasable starting with the most polluting like coal and unconventional oils like tar sands bitumen. Then moving on to light crude and natural gas until all energy production is fossil fuel free.

And yet there are still many who keep demanding we build more coal fired power plants or here in Canada who want to vastly increase the pipeline capacity from the tar sands to get significantly more bitumen to market where it will be burned creating an even more massive carbon dioxide plume than we are producing now.

I found it a little ironic that a few weeks ago when Australian school kids walked out to protest government inaction on climate change a minister commented that they were wrecking their future.

Australian kids walk out of school to protest climate inaction

No one will have much of a future at all if we don't make these essential transitions and as soon as possible. This has been under debate for almost a half century now, the time for talk is long past we need real action that actually significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions.

SkS Analogy 16 - Arctic ice, sailboat keels, and wild weather

Doug_C at 04:36 AM on 5 December, 2018

Evan @3

I agree fully, I was referring more to contrarians who use the claim that a few degrees increase in global temperature will have little impacts. When we already see significant changes in climate in many places and very troubling responses in biological communities such as the massive die offs of coral reefs in places like the Great Barrier Reef.

This temperature increase is averaged over the entire globe and as the meter constantly ticking here indicates, the addition of billions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere mostly from fossil fuels use also adds an incredible amount of heat to the Earth's surface. Over 2.685 billion Hiroshima bomb heat units since 1998 alone with 4 more being added every second.

We are reordering how heat and thus weather and climate is distributed around the Earth and this is already having catastrophic impacts.

The increase in global average temperature may be "slight" in relation to the overall temperature of the Earth, but there is nothing slight in the impacts. And at some point we will hit tipping points that will likely force rapid changes to an Earth that simply will not support many of the current species here now.

Ecosystem transition on a global scale as has happened in the past with rapid excursions in CO2 and then climate are now referred to as Extinction Level Events.

Do we really want to create one that we will all be caught in.

Alarming new study makes today’s climate change more comparable to Earth’s worst mass extinction

CO2 is coming from the ocean

Hairy Turtle at 06:19 AM on 3 December, 2018

Hi,

So the chemical reaction between hydrocarbons and oxygen are (hydrocarbon + 02 --> CO2 +H20). Lets take propane, for example. When combusting, we get (C3H8 + 5(O2) --> 3(CO2) + 4(H2O)). This article states that "Atmospheric oxygen is going down by the same amount as atmospheric CO2 is going up." From this equation, which I know is not the only type of fuel burned, CO2 is going up by 3 mols for every five mols of O2, so oxygen is burned faster than CO2 is emitted, which is the case for every hydrocarbon. This also doesn't account for impurities found in fossil fuels, like sulfur and nitrogen.

Im taking the 29 gigatons of CO2 emitted from this article. Doing some stoiciometry, we can find the number of tons of O2 that is being consumed by propane*.

29 gigatons = 2.9e+16 grams

2.9e+16 g / 44.01g = 6.5894115e+14 mols C02 produced, rounded to 6.6e+14 for significant figures.

(6.6e+14 mols CO2/3 mols CO2)(5 mols O2) = 1.1e+15 mols O2 consumed (sig figs)

1.1e+15 mols O2 is vastly greater than 6.6e+14 mols CO2.

In 1. Oxygen decrease, you say that the carbon part comes from reduced carbon compounds, and that the oxygen comes from the atmosphere, and I agree that burning fossil fuels uses oxygen from the atmosphere. But what I am not understanding is that O2 is decreasing at the same rate CO2 is increasing. O2 is consumed faster than CO2 is emitted, so O2 should be consumed at a 5:3 oxygen to carbon dioxide, which is not what your articles have been saying. If oxygen is decreasing by 5 ppm per year, CO2 should be increasing by 3 ppm, which is significantly different than the roughly 1:1 ratio suggested.

Where does this 2/5 discrepancy come from? Is there something I'm missing? If my math or reasoning is wrong, please show me where.

*I understand that propane is not the only type of fossil fuel burned, and is merely an example used in my argument. There will never be a 1-1 C02 to O2 ration when burning hydrocarbons, as is found in their balanced combustion reactions. The more complex hydrocarbons combust with a higher ratio of O2 to CO2 than propane, and simpler hydrocarbons combust at a lower ratio.

Thanks for your response.

B. M.

Climate science comeback strategies: Al Gore said what?

Daniel Bailey at 10:18 AM on 28 November, 2018

It's important to remember that the globe is not a homogenous whole, warming or cooling uniformly. And that regional and seasonal differences exist, sometimes opposite in sign, over time. So if the goal is to gain the best understanding of change over time, then I think that most would agree that the imperative is to use as many locations as possible using the most proxy types as possible, with the longest records possible.

With that in mind, we can look at the last 1,700 years, (from the NCA4, Vol 1 from 2017), which covers the specific period in detail, but from a global perspective (and not confined to just winters):

Last 1,700 years

For additional perspective, we can look at global temperatures over the past 22,000 years (from Bruce Railsback's Fundamentals of Quaternary Science):

Last 22,000 years

So as we can see, global proxies offer the best context.

A good summary of the present iteration of warming, from last week's released National Climate Assessment 2018, Vol. 2, from the Trump Administration:

"Scientists have understood the fundamental physics of climate change for almost 200 years. In the 1850s, researchers demonstrated that carbon dioxide and other naturally occurring greenhouse gases in the atmosphere prevent some of the heat radiating from Earth’s surface from escaping to space: this is known as the greenhouse effect.
This natural greenhouse effect warms the planet’s surface about 60°F above what it would be otherwise, creating a habitat suitable for life. Since the late 19th century, however, humans have released an increasing amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels and, to a lesser extent, deforestation and land-use change. As a result, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% over the industrial era.
This change has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.
Global climate is also influenced by natural factors that determine how much of the sun’s energy enters and leaves Earth’s atmosphere and by natural climate cycles that affect temperatures and weather patterns in the short term, especially regionally.
However, the unambiguous long-term warming trend in global average temperature over the last century cannot be explained by natural factors alone.
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only factors that can account for the observed warming over the last century; there are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.
Without human activities, the influence of natural factors alone would actually have had a slight cooling effect on global climate over the last 50 years."

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Daniel Bailey at 08:55 AM on 24 November, 2018

Interestingly, the 4h National Climate Assessment, Volume 2, was released today. Among many interesting findings, this was prominent:

"Scientists have understood the fundamental physics of climate change for almost 200 years. In the 1850s, researchers demonstrated that carbon dioxide and other naturally occurring greenhouse gases in the atmosphere prevent some of the heat radiating from Earth’s surface from escaping to space: this is known as the greenhouse effect.
This natural greenhouse effect warms the planet’s surface about 60°F above what it would be otherwise, creating a habitat suitable for life. Since the late 19th century, however, humans have released an increasing amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels and, to a lesser extent, deforestation and land-use change. As a result, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% over the industrial era.
This change has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.
Global climate is also influenced by natural factors that determine how much of the sun’s energy enters and leaves Earth’s atmosphere and by natural climate cycles that affect temperatures and weather patterns in the short term, especially regionally.
However, the unambiguous long-term warming trend in global average temperature over the last century cannot be explained by natural factors alone.
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only factors that can account for the observed warming over the last century; there are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.
Without human activities, the influence of natural factors alone would actually have had a slight cooling effect on global climate over the last 50 years."

Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

CThompson at 16:47 PM on 29 October, 2018

"It should come as no surprise that, when confronted with the challenge of reducing our carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, some people angrily proclaim, "Why should we bother? Even breathing out creates carbon emissions!"

This statement fails to take into account the other half of the carbon cycle. As you also learned in grade school, plants are the opposite to animals in this respect: Through photosynthesis, they take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, in a chemical equation opposite to the one above. (They also perform some respiration, because they need to eat as well, but it is outweighed by the photosynthesis.) The carbon they collect from the CO2 in the air forms their tissues - roots, stems, leaves, and fruit.

These tissues form the base of the food chain, as they are eaten by animals, which are eaten by other animals, and so on. As humans, we are part of this food chain. All the carbon in our body comes either directly or indirectly from plants, which took it out of the air only recently"

Only one problem, not all plant life is cycled through animal or human consumption. And, although you talk about plant respiration and proclaim that it is a very small contributor of carbon dioxide, it seems you forget that plants release carbon through decay which, when mixed with oxygen, then becomes carbon dioxide. Also, seems the issues of "carbon" and "carbon dioxide" are being confused here. Although humans may consume carbon, they produce carbon dioxide when they exhale. So, to suggest human respiration is carbon neutral is not true and to suggest plants make up for what carbon dioxide it is humans exhale doesn't seem viable either. Plants are only carbon neutral in that they take in the CO2 of which they themselves produce and convert it to O2. However, C (carbon) is produced in the form of waste, or decay. And, when that C (carbon) is exposed to oxygen, it then becomes carbon dioxide of which the plants, again, recycle and turn into oxygen and, again, into carbon in the form of waste/decay. And, the cycle goes on, and on, and on, and on. As I type this, it is autumn and I am watching the leaves fall off the trees. These leaves will decompose and, although some animal and insect life will consume some of these leaves, they will not consume all of these leaves and these leaves will decay and produce carbon. And, when said carbon is mixed with oxygen? It will become carbon dioxide. Of which, of course, these trees will use to produce new leaves when spring time arrives and will also use to continue to live throughout the rest of autumn and through winter.

1.5 Degree Climate Limit: Small Number; Huge Consequences

nigelj at 05:38 AM on 19 October, 2018

Thank's Mr Adam. Imho the report on 1.5 degrees is good science with a welcome sense of urgency. Finally The IPCC are spelling out harsh realities in strong language. Took a while to get there.

The danger is that people will start to think we face an impossible task, and countries may be tempted to say its "every man for himself" and retreat into Nationalism just when the appropriate respose is Internationalism and promotion of more altruistic values. I mean the timing of Trumps "presidency" and Brexit could not be more unfortunate. But what is the point of existance if we dont look beyond ourselves to other people and countries in a helpful spirit of altruism? Ultimately everyone benefits from this, if only people could see this.

In fact negative emissions technology including direct air capture may not be as expensive as people think, according to this article. However I'm not suggesting this in any way means we can go on burning fossil fuels, it just shows that climate mitigation is not as cost prohibitive as some people like to claim.

One other thing. IPCC projections state that if we continue to burn fossil fuels its possible that warming could exceed 10 degrees celsius above early industrial baselines by the year 2300. This gets forgotten in the focus on the year 2100, and I appreciate the science community doesn't focus so much on the longer term because of the risk it will create a feeling that we have plenty of time to solve the problem. We don't! But warming of over 10 degrees would be catastrophic, and simply cannot be allowed to happen. Fossil fuel burning simply has to stop, and the sooner it is phased down the easier it will be.

Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

Lasterday at 23:08 PM on 7 October, 2018

As a chemical engineer I feel it's misdirection to talk about the carbon cycle and say that an increase in human resperation does not add to atmospheric CO2. It may turn out to be a trivial amount, I'd have to find some numbers to guage it, but this post is meant to give a little background.

If all the carbon on earth were solid carbon and suddenly you changed it all to gaseous CO2 (this can't actually happen according to the gas law) and did this back and forth and back and forth according to the "carbon cycle" argument since there's no change in net carbon we are supposed to ignore atmospheric carbon going from nonexistant to "lots" and back again. "Hey - the cabon cycle is balanced." If more CO2 is put into the atmosphere from breathing the "cycle" itself gets bigger, the partial pressure of CO2 increases. Since biomass is a scrubber of CO2 (plants eat CO2) then there could be a net effect if the additional CO2 isn't eaten by plants. That's the issue. So to me, whipping out the carbon cycle doesn't make a whole lot of sense. My quick take is figure the volume of the atmosphere and the CO2 percentage and get that amount (huge # of moles) and then figure the amount in the resperation of 8 billion more people and see if the CO2 exaled from people is of the same order of atmospheric CO2. And keeping in mind that everything is an estimate - we don't know how many moles of carbon or anything else are on Earth. We don't know the exact volume of the atmosphere - they are estimates.

It may not factor in, but saying "the carbon cycle accounts for more breathing" is misdirection, it is just saying the net amount of carbon on Earth is staying the same, and that's not what the issue is. The net amount of gold on Earth is staying the same, too. Everything is - excepting new material from meterites and junk we send away in rockets that reaches outer space. We should be arguing about the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere.

'Ol Wikepedia says this "The oceans of the world have absorbed almost half of the CO2 emitted by humans from the burning of fossil fuels." It's like soda pop - if the ocean warms slightly, CO2 is released into the atmosphere increasing the partial pressure of CO2. Since the CO2 level seems to be cyclic

https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-rise-of-carbon-dioxide/

perhaps periodic ocean warming is the culprit. People argue that the older peaks are not as high as the current peaks, but remember the latest data is from direct measurement, the older values are taken from ice core samples and perhaps while the samples show higher CO2 values the peaks are lost from gas loses at the sample boundries, handling issues, etc.

Of course, industrial CO2 factors in. Let's run some real numbers!

New study reconciles a dispute about how fast global warming will happen

Doug_C at 08:31 AM on 25 September, 2018

The simple fact is we are emitting massive amounts of the primary persistent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every year and some are still trying to find ever more convoluted ways to justify this.

Are Volcanoes or Humans Harder on the Atmosphere?

"This argument that human-caused carbon emissions are merely a drop in the bucket compared to greenhouse gases generated by volcanoes has been making its way around the rumor mill for years. And while it may sound plausible, the science just doesn’t back it up.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors."

If there was a supervolcano or a massive flood basalt somewhere on the Earth's surface would we be debating at all the catastrophic impacts of it emitting 100 times the average amount of CO2 from tectonic activity every year.

We'd be preparing for the same kind of massive die-offs that the geological record indictates are associated with similar events like this in the past.

Something we are already beginning to see on a large scale when you consider the massive and rapid die-offs on the Great Barrier Reef alone.

This is a supervolcano we can shut of and in fact be much better for in terms of air quality, ecological integrity and financial cost.

The Data Says Climate Change Could Cost Investors Trillions

"If we stay on the current emissions path, the study predicts, the value at risk in global portfolios could range from about $2 trillion to $25 trillion. In a bit of understatement, Simon Dietz of the London School of Economics, the lead author of the report, told The Guardian, “long-term investors…would be better off in a low-carbon world.”

Estimates of climate risk in the trillions are unfortunately getting more common. Last year, Citi produced a powerful study of the costs and benefits of shifting the energy system toward low-carbon technologies. Unchecked climate change, Citi said, could cost the world $72 trillion by the middle of the century. But the big surprise in Citi’s report was the cost of building the low-carbon economy: the world can spend $2 trillion less in total on energy infrastructure and ongoing fuel costs than it would in the business-as-usual scenario. So we save $2 trillion and avoid losing up to $72 trillion in economic activity."

Fossil fuels are a lose-lose no matter how contrarians still try and load the dice in the favour of the fossil fuel sector by consistently downplaying the likely impacts of the continued emissions of tens of billions of tons of CO2 a year.

Kavanaugh’s views on EPA’s climate authority are dangerous and wrong

Doug_C at 07:53 AM on 11 September, 2018

There's no question at all that the Trump administration has specifically targeted the EPA to dismantle its ability to regulate polluters.

The now disgraced Scott Pruitt sued the EPA multiple times before being appointed by Trump to head it. And as head of the EPA worked to dismanlte the agency from the inside.

All of the ways Scott Pruitt changed energy policy

"Pruitt backed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, and rolled back or targeted a number of other important energy and environmental regulations. He also pushed for a smaller EPA budget — a victory for conservatives who argued throughout Barack Obama’s presidency that the agency was bloated and needed to be significantly downsized.

During his tenure at the EPA, critics argued Pruitt’s deregulatory actions were an assault on meaningful Obama-era reforms. Supporters claimed Pruitt’s approach helped spur economic growth, especially in the domestic oil and gas industries."

It should come as no surprise that Trump's nominee to the SCUS is soft on meaningful powers for the EPA to regulate private sector polluters who have been protected at the highest level for decades.

It's clear now to anyone who accepts the evidence just how dangerous and destructive fossil fuel driven climate change is now and how it will become increasingly so in the coming years. It's clear that there needs to be significant regulatory powers given to government agencies to control and then phase out all fossil fuel use no matter the impacts to a few corporations no matter their size and economic and political clout.

Law must flow from genuine social license based on the best information, not fabricated evidence from special interests that are now almost totally cut off from the reality we all now face.

A reality that becomes increasingly catastrophic as time passes.

The SCUS decided over a decade ago that carbon dioxide in the excessive amounts human society now emits on a constant basis is in fact a major pollutant. THe EPA should have enacted standards long ago to control emissions from tail pipe and smoke stacks aimed at eventually ending the use of all fossil fuels.

Any legal decisions need to flow from that or they will in fact be not be real justice.

But then again, the current White House adimistration and the GOP dominated US Congress seem to have very little to do with real justice and responsible policy.

The draconian measures to confirm Kavanaugh are evidence of this with massive amounts of information being withheld from those outside the immediate confirmation process and a rush to confirm Kavanaugh before the November election.

This has nothing to do with appointing a responsible legal expert to a lifelong position which will have a huge impact on how laws are interpreted in the US. If Kavanaugh is confirm as a SCUS Justice then this will be one more instance of control being taken out the hands of the public in the interests of a sector that is already heading us all down one of the most destructive courses possible.

California's response to record wildfires: shift to 100% clean energy

Doug_C at 06:22 AM on 6 September, 2018

One Planet Only Forever @29

The Trudeau liberals in the 2015 election ran on a platform of genuine climate change mitigation followed up by Prime Minister Trudeau boldly stating in Paris at the end of that year that "Canada is back" in regards to real climate change action plans and letting the science dictate policy.

Justin Trudeau tells Paris climate summit Canada ready to do more

That is not consistent at all with Justin Trudeau then telling fossil fuel industry executives in Houston that Canada would in fact not restrict its production of the most polluting fossil fuels here.

173 billion barrels of oil

How is that not misleading the voters on the most important issue of our time, it's not the voters who are misinformed here it is intentional misrepresentation of policy to get elected that is at fault in Canada and our climate change mitigation.

Also the argument that we're somehow going to be worse off with another party in office is spurious. The Trudeau governments carbon dioxide emission targets are even worse than the Harper governments and as we've seen by both word and action from the Canadian federal government they are fully committed to decades more tar sands production no matter what the science or even the courts say.

The reaction of the Trudeau government to the Canadian appeal court decision overturning the rigged Trans Mountain NEB approval was to double down and complete the purchase of the pipeline anyway. Still claiming that tar sands production for decades is essential to the interests of Canada. Essentially saying this country was firmly behind making the climate change worst cas scenarios a reality.

The liberals were elected with a clear majority under a promise of real climate change action and a firm mandate to provide that. Followed up with an international commitment to do that just as a previous liberal government had done at Kyoto in 1997 and did nothing to follow up.

There is a clear pattern of promising action then doing the opposite with the current leadership in Canada, this results in the same effect as with governments who openly deny climate change as the conservatives did.

I don't know that answer is, I just know that the current "leadership" in Canada at all levels isn't providing it and I'm not going to be involved in the slightest in the ongoing fraud of Canada claiming to be part of the solution to the growing climate change catastrophe while dedicating vast resources to enable business as usual in the fossil fuel sector for decades more. Like spending tens of billions of dollars on fossil fuel infrastructure and subsidizing the industry with tax breaks and other benefits.

The time for this blatant hypocrisy is over as anyone who is even marginally rational can see from the real world effects of this profound disconnect from the evidence.

California's response to record wildfires: shift to 100% clean energy

Doug_C at 03:12 AM on 6 September, 2018

One Planet Only Forever @27

The planet doesn't care at all about the politics of fossil fuels only the impacts of releasing billions of tons of carbon dioxide and in the case of gas fracking and LNG millions of tons of methane a year from leakage.

We have viable options now and can be building a planned phase out of all fossil fuel right now.

The Trudeau government isn't doing that, Justin Trudeau has directly stated that fossil fuels are in the national interest and used public funds to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline and committed billions of dollars to it not because we need to be extracting, selling then burning tar sands bitumen for decades because we have no options. But because his political fortune is tied to the sector who funds the individuals and parties making these reckless decisions.

Same for Notley and Horgan, they were elected on a mandate of change, but have brought no real change. The science is now clear, we no longer have the decades for gradual change that these leaders claim is necessary as we are seeing here in BC, in California, in Europe and in Australia with drought, heat waves, massive wildfire and massive die-off of some of the most important ecosystems on the planet like the Great Barrier Reef.

You don't bring about real climate change mitigation be exempting from legal measures those corporations that need to be made non-comptetive through taxing so that they are removed by market forces.

Creating carbon taxes then exempting fossil fuel producers is greenwashing and goes on at all levels in Canada now.

Canada gives big polluters a break on carbon levies

"Canada is scaling back its planned carbon pricing scheme to curb greenhouse gas emissions after industry executives warned it would hurt their international competitiveness, the office of the environment minister said Wednesday."

John Horgan offers tax break incentives to $40B Kitimat LNG project

"B.C. Premier John Horgan says the province is willing to offer a break on carbon tax as well as an exemption on provincial sales tax related to construction costs at a $40-billion liquefied natural gas export terminal under consideration for the northern community of Kitimat, B.C.

The NDP leader laid out the incentives as part of what he said was a clear framework for the approval of any LNG projects under his government's tenure."

Subsidizing fossil fuel producers with billions of dollars while removing any real tax burden on them is not climate change mitigation, it is promoting those conditions that are already catastrophic and will become increasingly so as more years of total inaction proceed.

Show me anything real that has been done to limit CO2 and methane emissions in Canada and that will bring about a planned phaseout of the entire fossil fuel sector in a meaningful timescale.

There is none in this country, instead governments are directly behind massive projects that will enable decades more fossil fuel production and burning with Canada as the source.

That includes the Horgan government committing over $10 billion to build the Site C dam to power gas fracking in the Peace River region, offering billions of dollars in tax and royalty breaks to LNG and the Trudeau government committing billions of dollars to build a pipeline expansion that Canadian courts have already decided was only approved by ignoring all conisderation that were not in support of the fossil fuel producers.

Court quashes Canadian approval of Trans Mountain oil pipeline

It's been a rigged game in regards to fossil fuels in Canada for decades and remains so under the current federal and many provincial governments. The new conservative government of Ontario just killed any plans for a carbon tax there.

The guarantee is that if we aren't part of a real global climate change mitigation plan the eventual costs will dwarf any short term economic costs in transitioning to a very low carbon emitting energy model.

In fact we will save money by getting off all fossil fuels as soon as possible while preventing some of the worst impacts of fossil fuel generated climate change.

The Data Says Climate Change Could Cost Investors Trillions

These individuals and parties are deciding to be fossil fuel sector boosters, not climate change mitigators even though there is great support from the public both here and globally for real change and an international framework to do so.

Humans are pushing the Earth closer to a climate cliff

Doug_C at 06:50 AM on 17 August, 2018

Bob Hoye @10

We are not in a cooling trend in North America, globally we are in a warming state of climatic transition which results in a disruption of local weather patterns.

You just have to look at the amount of heat that is constantly being added to the Earth's surface through the mechanism of radiative forcing from things like the massive emission of carbon dioxide by human activity.

Fortunately we have a meter for that located on this very page.

2.646 billion atomic bomb quivalent heat units have been added to the Earth since 1998 alone. Most of that absobed by the oceans in a band 30 degrees on both sides of the equator. A place where ice and snow cover is not growing.

Here in BC ice and snow cover is also not growing we are witnessing a rapid loss of alpine glaciers in British Columbia.

Near total loss of glacial ice expected in BC, Alberta by 2100

We did have greater than average snowfall here last winter resulting in much deeper snow packs. But this is duirng the winter months when insolation is at its minimum here. Snow falls here later in the year and melts sooner.

Resulting in a greater and greater occurance of catastrophic flooding.

Record flooding in southern BC

I see nothing to be encouraged about by the highly chaotic weather conditions we are being subjected to here in western NA or the increainsly catastrophics impacts of fossil fuel generated climate change.

The Earth is not cooling based on almost all the evidence, it is warming at a rate that is overwhelming most natural mechanisms to adjust in a way that will mitigate catastrophic impacts like the loss of coral reef systems.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/science/great-barrier-reef-coral-climate-change-dieoff.html

Personally I have rarely seen the Sun in the last month and am glad that the large wildfire 3 kilometers to the north of my home has been put out. But much of this province is on fire with huge wildfire complexes that are joining together into incredible firestorms that cannot be fought. The same is happening right now in California. The smoke from BC reaches halfway across the continent and is causing unhealthy air conditions as far away as Manitoba.

BC smoke blankets Southern Manitoba

"Smoke from more than 500 wildfires burning in British Columbia has reached Manitoba prompting Environment and Climate Change Canada and Manitoba Health to issue a special air quality statement for the southern part of the province."

Far from being encouraged, for many of us the experience is of being part of a very large scale and long term disaster movie where the conditions become increasingly hostile.

Global warming will depress economic growth in Trump country

nigelj at 06:28 AM on 9 May, 2018

Jef @2

"Unless we tax the heck out of every carbon emitting activity (which is just about everything) and use ALL of that money to pay people to NOT do carbon emitting activities then there will be no net gain in a carbon tax, certainally not any that makes a difference."

We don't have to tax "the heck out of nearly everything". Just fossil fuels and products like cement etc. Other products have a carbon content because of the energy used in manufacture and transport, so you wouldn't tax them twice. It really depends on how the tax is structured, and there are various approaches.

I dont see that you have to pay people (the consumer) specifically not to do carbon emitting activities, and its hard to see how you would enforce this practically. For example Several countries have carbon taxes, and British Columbia for example has a small carbon tax which has provided a net gain as in this article.. They dont give all the tax back to the people or spend it on low carbon activities, as far as I'm aware. I stand to be corrected.

From the article :"The tax, which rose from 10 Canadian dollars per ton of carbon dioxide in 2008 to 30 dollars by 2012, the equivalent of about $22.20 in current United States dollars, reduced emissions by 5 to 15 percent with “negligible effects on aggregate economic performance,” according to a study last year by economists at Duke University and the University of Ottawa."

I agree obviously it will need to be set much higher to lead to 50% reductions, but if its tax and dividend this keeps power in consumers hands. The economics suggest enough would be spent on low carbon goods to make a difference.

However personally I think some of the tax should however go to manufacturers subsidising electric cars, so it would be a 'partial' tax and dividend scheme. I think the important thing is not to have such a dividend end up in general government spending on education, military etc.

Climate's changed before

Daniel Bailey at 09:16 AM on 8 May, 2018

"where does all the carbon dioxide come from in previous ice ages? I believe it came from warming oceans"

Conceded. However, the rise in atmospheric concentration of CO2 driving the modern warming is NOT coming from the oceans, but from the human burning of fossil fuels. This we know pretty thoroughly, due to the distinctive isotopic signature of the rise. Also, we know that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is not from the oceans because the oceans are still acidifying. This is well-understood by science and not contested in any meaningful way.

Read this post for background. If questions, place them there, not here.

The Koch Industries-funded BEST team found that, WRT 'Is CO2 leading or lagging temperature rise':

"we know that the CO2 is not coming from the oceans but from human burning of fossil fuels"

And

"it is clear that it is the CO2 that comes first, not the warming"

Due to the thermal lag of the oceans in response to the anthropogenically-forced warming imposed upon them, the world will continue to warm and its climate will continue to change, for decades after the cessation of the usage of fossil fuels. Again, pretty well understood by science.

This is a science- and evidence-based venue, with regulars well-versed in the science.

Climate's changed before

mkrichew at 06:20 AM on 8 May, 2018

I disagree with your statement that science has a good understanding of past climate changes and their causes. It does not. Also,Milankovitch was obviously brilliant to have figured out the spinning shifts of the earth. I believe he said that it might explain ice age cycles. Wikipedia gave a good explanation of the faults with that theory. I prefer my own theory listed as the Mike Krichew theory of what causes ice ages. So ask yourself the question: where does all the carbon dioxide come from in previous ice ages? I believe it came from warming oceans. This would explain why CO2 levels lag global warming in the data. So, what does the data say about warming oceans today. I have read that they are warming and thus giving off a lot more CO2 than our burning of fossil fuels now. Thus, I argue that even if we stop all fossil fuel burning today it will not stop global warming.

CO2 lags temperature

scaddenp at 14:02 PM on 4 May, 2018

mkrichew - the first graph (Fig 1) is cyclic in sense that it is the superposition of the 3 Milankovich cycles. These orbital cycles affect climate by making large variation to insolation around 65N, affecting the albedo by changes in snow cover which in turn sets up other feedbacks. However, they only came to affect climate when CO2 dropped below 400ppm (long term geological sequestration). They dont do much in a warmer earth. Note also that those cycles are slow. A maximum change in forcing of around 0.25W/m2 per century at 65N compared with 1.66W/m2 per century from CO2 alone across entire whole globe.

"I believe but could be wrong that the ocean is already warming and giving off more carbon dioxide than we do burning fossil fuels"

Fortunately, you are wrong. The oceans are still net absorbers of CO2 and will continue to do so for centuries (ocean mixing takes a long time). Details in Ar5 chp 6.

CO2 lags temperature

mkrichew at 13:00 PM on 4 May, 2018

This has probably been said but the first graph looks cyclic to me. Also, the graphs have been correlated to two other scientific phenomena, oxygen isotope ratio variation and extinctions. The point is, climate change has happened before and likely will happen again. Check out the Mike Krichew theory of what causes ice ages on my facebook page. If my theory is correct and the IPCC has pretty much proved the first part of it, then unless you want to spend money on cooling the ocean and removing CO2 from the air then we are going to see what global warming is. I believe but could be wrong that the ocean is already warming and giving off more carbon dioxide than we do burning fossil fuels. Folks, the ship has sailed or the train has left the station. We are going to find out the results of what we started.

The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels

One Planet Only Forever at 11:58 AM on 28 April, 2018

nigelj@6,

I agree with your points in general. But would add that currently there is a competition to develop CO2 removal technology (See this link). And the people who got wealthier from the burning of fossil fuels owe the future generations the reduction of the excess CO2 using the best of these technologies (no profit for the action, just a charitable non-profit action paid for by all the appropriate wealthy people including those who don't want to have to pay for it).

And that CO2 removal cost would be reduced by those same wealthy people pushing for the rapid reduction of increased CO2 that they would have to pay to remove. That is how free-markets are supposed to work. The responsible people decide if they want to act to reduce their costs of clean-up or pay the full cost of clean-up.

Understanding the corrections required for the future of civilization has been a work in progress since before the 1972 Stockholm Conference. The currently developed best understanding of the required corrections is achieving all of the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. It is clear that achieving all of the goals is the only way to a better future for humanity. Not achieving any one of the goals means that none of the other goals will have been sustainably achieved.

For quite a while now, global political and business leaders, and all of the wealthiest around the world, have had no excuse for not being aware of the required corrections. Their actions, including actions in the past, that are contrary to achieving those goals, including attempts to delay the proper awareness and understanding in the general population, needs to become the ethical/legal basis for the international community of caring powerful people ensuring that the undeserving among the winners lose their ability to influence things until they prove they have meaningfully responsibly considerately changed their minds and decided to become helpful rather than harmful.

Albert Einstein understood that it was essential for sovereign freedoms to be given up if humanity is to have a future when he wrote: "This is the problem: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war? ... As one immune from nationalist bias, I personally see a simple way of dealing with the superficial (i.e., administrative) aspect of the problem: the setting up by international consent of a legislative and judicial body to settle every conflict arising between nations. ... Thus I am led to my first axiom: the quest of international security involves the unconditional surrender by every nation, in a certain measure, of its liberty of action, its sovereignty that is to say, and it is clear beyond all doubt that no other road can lead to such security." (to Dr. Freud (q.v.), July 30, 1932)

Climate Science Denial Explained: Tactics of Denial

Doug_C at 17:07 PM on 19 April, 2018

Let's use the relativity of wrong to compare a climate change "conspiracy" perpetrated by scientists with a climate change denial conspiracy perpetrated by people associated with the fossil fuel sector.

1. In the first case this would have to be a very long running conspiracy dating back to the early days of modern science when it was first realized that the Earth's surface was warmer than it should be if it was just radiating its black body radiation driectly into space - that was in the late 1600s. By the 1820s Joseph Fourier has calculated by how much the Earth was being wamred by this unknown process. By the 1850s John Tyndall had identified what was almost certainly the mechanism, carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere that he clearly demonstrated to the London Royal Society trapped heat. By the 1890s Svante Arrhenius did the thousands of calculations by hand that were required to determine climate sensitivity - what happens to average global temperature if you double atmospheric CO2. Results that are "suspiciously" still within modern margin of error. All this before the development of very powerful theoretical tools to understand how nature behaves at the smallest level where this process would be going on.

Now we have the next step in the science "conspiracy" with the introduction of quantum mechanics and a much deeper understanding of why more complex molecules like H2O and CO2 absorbs heat and N2 and O2 don't. Confirming the science that already stretched back two centuries. And all subsequent science on climate change has been based on this solid theoretical and experimental foundation.

If there is a scientific conspiracy regarding climate change it is very old and suspiciously self-confirming by using the scientific process that gives us most of modern technology and therefore modern society itself.

If the science of climate change is a fraud then so is all the rest of science which is based in the same fundamental theories in which case society stops working and falls apart... we're still here. Great, that's evidence that the science of climate change has a very high degree of confidence.

2. Case two, is climate change denial a fraud and if so who is behind it. Where oh where would we ever find parties with almost unlimited funding who might want to deny the valid science of climate change no matter the consistent data for centuries.

We know that those running Exxon had a very good idea of the science 40 years ago and decided to deny it.

Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago

We also know with a high degree of confidence that some of the same "scientists" that went to work with the tobacco industry to deny health risks also transferred the same techniques developed to do that to denying climate change.

The denial industry

We also know that the Royal Society specifically warned Exxon to stop funding climate change denial in 2006.

Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial

And even though on the surface it seems like it did stop outright funding of denial groups it had set up, the evidence is now that a complex network has been created to use "dark money" to keep funding climate change denial.

"Dark Money" Funds Climate Change Denial Effort

So comparing the two "conspiracies" lets see how they fit in the relativity of wrong.

- A conspiracy of scientists is highly unlikely because it totally lacks a motive. All the individuals associated with the field going back centuries were applying the latest knowledge in the best manner available. And their result are still in close agreement with science in general without which modern society wouldn't exist.

Very unlikely that there is a scientific conspiracy behind human created climate change.

2. Denial of the science appeared suddenly in the late 1970s when individuals running a corporation that would soon cease to exist if the latest science guided policy decided to deny that science no matter the cost. They later used techniques developed by the tobacco industry which has since been sued successly many times for doing so.

There is a long, well documented money trail from the fossil fuel sector to the denial movement. Which means deniers are not true skeptics in any sense, they are paid shills. When presented with evidence of their own complicity in a 40 year old fraud they totally ignore it and go into a complex display of the techniques of denial as listed above. Once again first created by the tobacco lobby to convince members of each new generation to contribute "replacement" smokers as the older ones died off much earlier than they would have otherwise.

End result.

- No evidence at all the scientific theory of human forced climate change has been intentionally forged at any point.

- All the evidence point to denial being entirely a fraudulent exercise to distort and deny the valid science in exactly the same manner the tobacco lobby did using some of the very same players. See Fred Seitz and Fred Singer for two examples of this.

American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

Doug_C at 12:36 PM on 8 April, 2018

"For example, about two-thirds of Americansnow realize that most scientists agree global warming is occurring, up from less than half in 1997."

To amplify william's comment, it's not the scientists that are in agreement on this, it is the data. And there has been high confidence in the data of human fored climate change by the massive emissions of carbon dioxide through repeated demonstration of its accuracy through direct observation for decades.

The chances of the science behind an increasing positive forcing of the radiative balance through massive emmissions of a molecule tuned to absorb heat being in fundanmental error is vanishingly small.

The chances of ongoing claims that there is no significant forcing of the radiative balance through the emission of gigatons of CO2 every year is also vanishingly small.

This isn't a question of one group of experts out-competiting another group with a rival theory, this is a question of virtually all the verifiable data indicating a very specific response to changing the ability of the atmosphere to absorb heat as opposed to the intellectual equivalent of a child putting their fingers in their ears and chanting loudly so they don't hear something they are unable to accept.

Isaac Asimov coined a term, the Relativity of Wrong. This compares competing hypothesis that are attempting to descirbe a phenomena. It scales a hypothesis by how well it explains something in testible terms.

Applying this relativity of wrong concept to the science of human forced climate change by the massive emissions of carbon dioixde to the hypothesis that it has no major radiative forcing, there is no comparison.

In pure information respects there is no competing hypothesis to explain why the Earth is rapidly warming as we drive the concentration of atmospheric CO2 ever higher.

Which means that those scientists who are doing genuine research in climate change and the human forcing factor are in far more than 97% agreement.

Like a massive object trying to achieve the speed of light, it is never possible to achieve 100%. I'd say that the genuine science on this has to be more 99.99%.

Because virtually all the observation is in agreement with the fundamental theories. Are we going to tweek quantum mechanics now to appease the fossil fuel sector...

If so then modern society will come to a crashing halt, because the same quantum theories that allow all our modern transistor based electronics to work also describe why molecules like N2 and O2 - which make up almost all the atmosphere - are transparent to heat but CO2 isn't.

Anyone posting online how the science of human forced climate change is in error has just disproved their own statements by demonstrating our high confidence in the fundamental theories that allow them to enter the online digital world and also explain why the Earth will warm as we increase the concentration of a gas that has been demonstrated in clear quantum mechanical terms to absorb heat.

CO2 is not a pollutant

One Planet Only Forever at 02:16 AM on 28 March, 2018

Aomsin@34,

You provided two definitions of pollution then provided the connection between human created CO2 from burning ancient buried hydrocarbons to the second definition.

Think seriously about why you opened your comment by declaring "I think carbon dioxide is not a pollution."

The interpretation of the definition is a game played by legal-minded people trying to argue against government regulations to limit harmful impacts of human activity. The EPA written legal mandate is to limit 'pollution'. That is the cause of the attempts to legally argue that CO2 from burning fossil fuels is not 'pollution' (an argument has been lost in the courts). Continuing to argue about the definition distracts from the undeniable harmful consequences of the activity. And regulatory bodies like the EPA should act to restrict the creation of harmful consequences, no matter what term is used to describe them.

CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused

emmy at 01:12 AM on 27 March, 2018

In general, I believe that many things happen naturally. But naturally, cause a very little amount of effect if we compare to human activities. CO2 or carbon dioxide is a colorless gas consisting of carbon and oxygen. It occurs naturally in the atmosphere. Plants use it and animals also produce it in respiration. It is a major greenhouse gas emitted by fossil fuel combustion. Burning fossil fuels is one of the causes that make CO2 increase so we can't say that iCO2 came from natural because human is the one who controls everything even we can control that in next 50 years what we want our world gonna be like. The science researcher says that humans are emitting CO2 at a rate twice as fast as the atmospheric increase (natural sinks are absorbing the other half).Nature is absorbing more CO2 than it is emitting. So, the percent that CO2 increases in our world today caused by human activities whether directly or indirectly way. It has more effect than natural.

Flaws of Lüdecke & Weiss

william5331 at 05:01 AM on 18 January, 2018

We should be going into the next glaciation, not because of the sun's output but because of the Milankovitch cycle. In fact if you read Ploughs, Plagues and Petroleum by Ruddiman, you see that snow and ice had begun to accumulate in the high lands of Baffin Island. Fortunately our output of green house gas reversed the process. It would have happened a little earlier but ploughing had released enough carbon into the atmosphere to slow the otherwise inevitable slide. The great plagues in the old world and the destruction of the native population in the new world by diseases brought by the Spanish caused a huge recovery of forests which was enough to just tip us over the edge to snow accumulation. Increased industrialization then came to our rescue. It is a shame we are using fossil fuels so extravegantly. If used judicially, we could completely avoid the next glaciation. Instead we may tip ourselves into a very nasty heating scenario, followed by a collapse of our civilization and a rapid draw down of Carbon dioxide as the forests and jungles recover. From a destructive heating we could then slide into the next glaciation.

Flaws of Lüdecke & Weiss

Doug_C at 11:26 AM on 17 January, 2018

Sounds like LW17 is a study in confirmation bias not actual climate research based on actual data.

Sure the Sun moderates climate on Earth, that is not the issue today.

The issue we now all face is the virtually unrestricted release of carbon dioxide - the primary persistent GHG - from fossil fuels.

It is simple to chart the increase in concentration of cardon dioxide in the atmosphere with a clear increase in averge yearly temperature as well as other clear indicators of a warming Earth such as changes in the timing of seasons, loss of global cryosphere, thermal expansion of oceans and more.

And we can directly measure the increase of heat coming from the atmosphere in the spectrum that is absorbed by carbon dioxide, a plain fingerprint of the role that carbon dioxide plays in moderating the Earthès climate. Which is something we've understood with growing confidence since the early 1800s which culminated with a scientist in the late 1800s working out by hand what would happen if you doubled the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.

And who's results are still within the margin of experimental error.

Even without quantum mechnical theory, over a century of data, computer models and highly sensitive instruments that were at best theory in the 1800s, Svante Arrhenius in the 1890s was still doing better science than these guys.

Thanks again Skeptical Science for decoding intentionally generated bad science such as is represented by "work" like this.

As for Bentham Open, how peer-reviewed is a journal that published an article that was generated by computer and submitted to test just how reviewed Benthan Open articles are.

CRAP paper accepted by Journal

One Planet Summit: Finance Commitments Fire-Up Higher Momentum for Paris Climate Change Agreement

Pluto at 16:39 PM on 5 January, 2018

I realize that Comments Policy of this forum includes a "no politics" policy, but in view of the following statements, I presume this policy does not apply to this particular page.

The UN sustainable development goals make perfect sense.

I completely agree with your identification of the problem: "People able to get away with pursuits of Private Interests that are impediments to the pursuit of the Global Public Interest of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals."

My criticism is of politicians who are good at making announcements but not so good at following through. If those are the troublemakers, I am not sure what you do with them other than vote them out.

What I am questioning is the willingness of developed countries to transfer a significant portion its wealth to another country in the name of climate change.

Therefore, I will feel free to speak my mind, political or otherwise. I have a doctorate degree in physics and was one of thousands of scientists working in the defense industry who lost their careers in the early 1990s with the defense downsizing that occurred with the "end of the Cold War", sometimes called the "outbreak of peace". THIS is when the United States should have started acting on AGW problems if in fact they existed. The UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report came out in 1990 which warned of possible threats posed by the enhanced greenhouse effect from human emissions, especially carbon dioxide. Also, Al Gore (first as U.S. Senator and then Vice President) started his activism on global warming, stressing the importance of reducing our fossil fuel while mentioning nothing about actually solving the problems of obtaining clean sustainable energy. To address these problems, especially with the urgency he was claiming, it requires the participation of many different scientists with various backgrounds in order to cover as many bases as possible. Oftentimes, several different technological breakthroughs are needed for a new alternative energy system to work. This is where many former defense scientists could have been put back to work, but guess what? — NO JOBS! Instead, the "peace dividend" (savings from the defense cut-backs) went into helping the former Soviet scientists, bailing out failed financial institutions, and getting involved in every skirmish in the Middle East, all with the support of Al Gore and his climate change followers. One of the scientific careers that was destroyed in the process was mine. So, I hope you understand that Al Gore is one person I am not cheering on. For a person who seems to revere "what the science says", he sure has helped to destroy lots of scientific careers.

Because of the anti-science attitude held by Al Gore and his political AGW followers, we are not nearly ready to switch over to any sort of clean sustainable energy. They only talked to scientists who could come up with good scare stories about what would happen if we don't cut back on our carbon emissions while barely mentioning the possibility of finding solutions. That, of course, would mean that more scientists and engineers would have to be hired — a commitment they did not want to make.

While some advances have been made in the area of alternative energy resources such as solar and wind, the intermittent nature of their operation makes it impossible for them to provide reliable power on their own. They may be able to mitigate the fossil fuel burning to some degree by grid-tying them to a power system run on conventional coal and nuclear fuel. Then, on sunny and/or windy days, the solar arrays and wind turbines reduce the load on the main generators, reducing the amount of fuel needed the meet power demands. Both solar and wind power, however, also have some bad side-effects that I'm not sure have ever been adequately addressed. For example, the photovoltaic cells used in the solar panels don't grow on trees. They must be manufactured and that involves toxic chemicals and lots of energy. Also, the latest manufacturing methods use nitrogen tri-flouride (NF3), a non-condensible greenhouse gas about 17000 times as strong as carbon dioxide. In the case of wind power, I have heard claims that the wind turbines are difficult and expensive to maintain and that the spinning turbine blades can be a real menace to the aviary population (ie. birds and bats) which play and important role in controlling disease carrying and crop destroying insects. With any new alternative energy source, we must ask the question of which is worse, the problem or the solution.

In addition to finding new energy source technologies, there may be ways of greatly increasing the efficiency of electric motors and generators based on existing technology. Nickola Tesla, a Serbian immigrant, has numerous patents in this area. Perhaps it is time we start dusting them off and seeing if his ideas could be of benefit in solving our current problems. Just because these patents are old does not mean they are useless or obsolete. Of course, qualified scientists and engineers would have to be hired to do this.

In view of the fact that Al Gore and the AGW community in general has done little or nothing to find solutions to the AGW problems they are preaching, I can only surmise that they themselves are not concerned about any AGW threats. Also, Al Gore has not exactly been a leader by good example with his power usage being 20-30 times as high as the average American. If they the AGW icons are not worried about such threats, why should I be?

CO2 limits won't cool the planet

Aaron Davis at 15:31 PM on 19 December, 2017

While this post does not fit into the Taxonomy of Arguments I hope it will help.

Global Warming IS happening
Human energy consumption from fossil and nuclear fuels combined with positive feedbacks from H2O are the cause.
Global Warming is very serious
It's NOT too hard too fix. BUT — CO2 MODERATION WILL NOT BE EFFECTIVE.
IPCC overstating the effect of CO2 hurts the argument.

Facts:

The Mars atmosphere is 0.6% as dense as earth's. Surface density: ~0.020 kg/m3 https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
The main component of the atmosphere of Mars is carbon dioxide (CO2) at 95.9% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars#Carbon_dioxide
The density of carbon dioxide on Mars is ~0.019 kg/m3
The Earth atmosphere is ~1.2 kg/m3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
Carbon dioxide in the earths atmosphere is 400 ppm (0.4 ppt, 0.04%)
The density of carbon dioxide on Earth is ~0.00048 kg/m3
Mars has 40 times more CO2 molecules per floating around a unit volume than does earth
A summer day on Mars may get up to 70 degrees F, but at night the temperature can plummet to about minus 100 degrees F. https://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html
At sea level on the equator (Manta, Ecuador) the temperature ranges from 70 to 80 degrees F.

Conclusion:

If CO2 were a significant factor compared to other factors such as water vapor, and ocean temperature regulation daily solar radiation on Mars would be much less.
Moderating CO2 concentrations on earth will not be an effective method of achieving near term global thermal control

What will be effective? Enhanced Nighttime Radiant Cooling.

Stop using fossil and nuclear fuels which heats the planet beyond the ability of nighttime radiant cooling to reject that heat.
Move high energy industry like smelting, petroleum refining and concrete manufacturing to high desert nighttime environments.
Use 100,000 per day commercial flights to remove clouds and humidity from nighttime skies - weather modification.
Expose more liquid sea water to polar night conditions to achieve a 40 oC temperature gradient http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf
"Carbon dioxide and ozone have a lesser greenhouse effect." than cloud height, cloud cover, and relative humidity

This figure shows Radiant Flux vs temperature for various relative humidity. A 50 W m-2 improvement can be achieved by increasing the temperature difference during polar winter and decreasing RH at lower latitudes by weather modification.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/O7G1EJo.png[/img]

https://imgur.com/O7G1EJo

View post on imgur.com

Global climate impacts of a potential volcanic eruption of Mount Agung

nigelj at 07:29 AM on 6 October, 2017

Aleks @12

Just briefly the sort of volcanic eruptions we typically see decade to decade dont emit enough CO2 and other greenhouse gases to make much difference as below from an article on this website:

"Published reviews (on volcanoes) of the scientific literature by Mörner and Etiope (2002) and Kerrick (2001) report a range of emission of 65 to 319 million tonnes of CO2 per year. "

The burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use results in the emission into the atmosphere of approximately 34 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year worldwide, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm

They do emit enough aerosols to cool the climate dor a year or two.

Some massive volcanic explosions like Krakatoa have emitted enough CO2 to get really significant, but they are infrequent. In fact theres evidence that a massive and frequent series of volcanic eruptions millions of years ago in Asia caused a period of global warming, but the modern world is very unlikely to experince something like that, because geological conditions are now very different.

We're heading into an ice age

Daniel Bailey at 23:14 PM on 3 September, 2017

"perhaps guessing the precise combinations required to affect the planet's next temperature change is more philosophical than intrically scientific"

No guesswork needed. The Earth's climate doesn't change significantly without a change in factors capable of forcing it to change. When climate is in balance, seasons come and go at their usual times and polar ice cover stays within range of natural variations. As do ocean pH and global temps. If global temps and ocean pH are changing, which we can measure and verify that they are, then there must be a change in the composition of those gross factors which can affect climate.

The gross factors affecting climate are: Milankovitch cycles (orbital factors), solar output, volcanoes (typically a negative forcing), aerosols, surface albedo and non-condensable greenhouse gases (water vapor plays the role of feedback). Orbital forcing has been negative for the past 5,000 years (since the end of the Holocene Climate Optimum), solar output during the past 40+ years has been flat/negative, volcanoes exert a short-term (up to several years) negative forcing (but none of note since Pinatubo), aerosols (natural and manmade) are a net negative forcing over that time period. Albedo is a net positive forcing due to the ongoing loss of Arctic sea ice; cloud albedo effects are thought to be in general a net zero forcing.

Radiative Forcing
Bigger image

Which leaves the non-condensable greenhouse gases, primary of which are carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Atmospheric levels of both are rising, and have been for literally centuries now, so they are a net warming. While the concentration of CH4 is rising, and it is a potent GHG, the warming from it is overall less than that of CO2 due to the much more massive injection of previously-sequestered, fossil-fuel-derived bolus of CO2 humans are re-introducing back into the carbon cycle.

"I'd say that it's way more likely to get colder than warmer relative to the cycles indicated on the graph"

Still no guesswork neded. Scientists have researched that very subject. What they've found is that the next ice age has been postponed indefinitely.

Per Tzedakis et al 2012,

"glacial inception would require CO2 concentrations below preindustrial levels of 280 ppmv"

For reference, we are at about 400 right now and climbing, so we can be relatively sure the next glacial epoch won't be happening in our lifetimes.

But what about further down the road? What happens then? Per Dr Toby Tyrrell (Tyrrell 2007) of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton:

"Our research shows why atmospheric CO2 will not return to pre-industrial levels after we stop burning fossil fuels. It shows that it if we use up all known fossil fuels it doesn't matter at what rate we burn them.
The result would be the same if we burned them at present rates or at more moderate rates; we would still get the same eventual ice-age-prevention result."

and

"Burning all recoverable fossil fuels could lead to avoidance of the next five ice ages."

So no ice ages and no Arctic sea ice recovery the next million years...

Also covered by Stoat, here

This Nature article offers an interesting summary

Paper listing on the topic

Ganopolski et al 2016 - Critical insolation–CO2 relation for diagnosing past and future glacial inception

GHG emissions have canceled the next ice age summary.

Another such summary

New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest

nigelj at 17:19 PM on 30 August, 2017

NorrisM @50

Schellenburger says "Moreover, all three previous energy transitions resulted in what’s known as “dematerialization”: the new fuels produced the same amount of energy using far fewer natural resources."

Complete nonsense. Oil and coal are the result of the compaction of vast quantities of plant and small organisms so many natural resources. They may be dense but they are not small users of resources.

And energy density is not the only measure of usefulness. Energy dense turns out to have difficult implications, like global warming and safety risks with nuclear energy.

" By contrast, a transition from fossil fuels to solar or wind power, biomass, or hydroelectricity would require rematerialization—the use of more natural resources—since sunlight, wind, organic matter, and water are all far less energy dense than oil and gas."

So what? This does not make sunlight etc in any way less effective at generating electricity. The fact that the market is choosing them proves they are effective and thats all that counts! Not some writers empty rhetoric.

Sunlight comes free and is abundant. Anyone who sees using it as a problem is being idiotic.

"Basic physics predicts that that rematerialization would significantly increase the environmental effects of generating energy. "

Absolute nonsense. Show me a specific law or equation that predicts this. In fact density is nothing to do with the issues, less or more energy dense can all have environmental impacts, its entirely dependent on how the source is used, and pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere turns out to be a problem. Solar power has less environmental problems and the ones it does have are easy enough to resolve.

"Although these would not be uniformly negative, many would harm the environment."

Sunlight comes free and using it does not harm a thing.

" Defunct solar panels, for example, are often shipped to poor countries without adequate environmental safeguards"

That is a procedural problem that doesn't need to happen, and is a great deal less damaging than climate change. Old solar panel materials can be disposed of safely or recycled. The problem is political where certain political parties are anti recycling and anti environmental law.

Schellenburger is not a scientist or physicist, and clearly doesnt understand what he's saying and claiming. He is a cultural anthropologist according to his wikipedia entry. I'm not dismissing all his views on everything, but the above mentioned are completely senseless.

Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought

Ger at 14:07 PM on 26 July, 2017

A good starting point would be the time when fossil fuel usage surpassed the use of charcoal/firewood. First commercial mining of coal started back in 1680 (England), 1740 (USA) but the use of coal became significant after we could produce a better from the coal than charcoal (around 1850). I would pick that point as the start time: we put more long stored carbon into the air than from the short storage period.

Best option to me would be creating a second -closed loop- carbon cycle, capturing all carbon dioxide from power production. No need for sequestering on a large scale if at the same time we use all available solar/wind power produced in excess to convert CO2 back to methane (Power to gas) and inject the gas into existing pipelines/resevoirs until needed. Solar power received is large enough to convert a 10,000 time over all energy need so even a 2% coverage of all land mass (roof tops/desserts/forest/water bodies) with 0.5% efficient overall technology would give about 2 to 3 times the amount of energy we use today. The larger part of that excess can be used to remove CO2 from the natural loop and inject into the new technical loop.

If carbon capture can be done for a $45/ton ( $135/MWh produced) than, on top of the production price of $70/MWh, reducing distribution costs by local distributed generation (tie lines with capacity of 10% of total volume) to a $30/MWh, we are looking at a power price $235/MWh or US$ 0.235/kWh at the moment.

Currently the price I pay (non-industrial use) is a 16 cents/kWh (Philippines, Manila area) but know of enough areas here where the actual price is 22 cents, areas in Cambodia where the price is 1700 Riels (consumer, 40 cents) to 2000 Riels (industrial, 45 cents). Imagine a good distributed power to gas generating system in such sunshine countries with constant 'natural' carbon capture storing natural carbon in a separte second loop.

It's methane

Daniel Bailey at 02:35 AM on 26 July, 2017

Let's look at atmospheric methane levels, shall we?

First, we see that overall levels of atmospheric methane are indeed rising:

Atmospheric methane

We can also look at the global methane budget:

Global methane budget

We can even look at atmospheric levels of methane by latitude band:

Methane by latitude

From the available evidence, we see that the primary sources of the recent rise are from the tropics and mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with some further contributions from animal agriculture and fugitive emissions from industry.

Doubtless further research will elucidate better quantifications.

Your contributions from Zickfeld et al (not Solomon) are noted. But the sheer size of the bolus emissions from CO2 have multi-millennial consequences, too:

Per Zhang and Caldeira 2015, when you burn a lump of coal or some gas, the greenhouse effect from the resulting CO2 will over time warm the Earth 100,000 times more than the heat released upon combustion.

(1 min video on their new study comparing CO2 and direct thermal warming from fossil fuels)

At the end of The Long Thaw, David Archer calculates that the amount of energy that is trapped by the CO2 produced by burning gasoline today is, over its atmospheric lifetime, 40 million times the amount of fuel energy released today.

"The lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is a few centuries, plus 25 percent that lasts essentially forever. The next time you fill your tank, reflect upon this. The climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge," Archer writes. "Longer than time capsules, longer than nuclear waste, far longer than the age of human civilization so far."
"The effects of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere drop off so slowly that unless we kick our "fossil fuel addiction", to use George W. Bush's phrase, we could force Earth out of its regular pattern of freezes and thaws that has lasted for more than a million years."

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #28

Doug_C at 05:00 AM on 17 July, 2017

I find this easy to believe based on recent summers here. I live in southern BC with family just across the border in Washington state.

In 2015 my relatives in Washington were on evacution notice for two months as there were massive wildfires surrounding the town where they lived. The largest just to the south of them was over 200,000 acres. The smoke from those fires blew up into Canada and was so dense at times it was like fog. It made life very difficult and most people spent as little time outdoors as possible.

I spent most of my youth in central BC and now watch as much of that territory is on fire. I can go on the BC Forest Service wildfire maps and check homes where I used to live which may not be there much longer. My brother and his family along with 17,000 other people in BC have been evacuated and may not have a home to go back to.

This is the new "normal" and the very scary thing is that it will keep getting worse as we continue to burn even more fossil fuels and force the climate into an even more hostile state.

At the same time all this is happening the federal Trudeau government has approved the twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline from Alberta to Burrard inlet in Vancouver which will be able to carry 800,000 barrels of dilbit a day. Allowing almost 300,000,000 barrels a year of tar sands crude to be sent to market and burned by this one route alone. This being allowed by a national leader who claims to understand the science and risk of climate change and agrees that we need mitigation.

The power of carbon dioxide to alter a planets surface conditions is incredible, our twin planet just a few tens of millions of miles closer to the Sun has the hottest planetary surface in the solar system almost certainly due to its 97% CO2 atmosphere.

But we don't need to get anywhere close to that to make the Earth unihabitable for most of the life here. Just change the climate faster than most species can adapt or migrate and trigger the kind of changes in the oceans that have led to massive dieoffs both in the sea and on land.

Massive forest fires on land will be the least of our worries if in the future the oceans go anoxic and begin producing the kind of poison gases that likely occurred during the Permian and possibly other extinction level events.

For an existential emergency, so many appear to be incredibly complacent.

Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming

Doug_C at 01:03 AM on 15 July, 2017

I live in BC, the forcast today is sunny with smoke from the wildfires that are all across this Canadian province, it has been this way for a week and is forecast for days to come.

NASA is detecting the smoke from the worst wildfires in Siberia in 10,000 years.

Siberian Wildfires

There are so many indicators like this that the climate in many places has been altered significantly already with more to come that denying human forced climate change is purely an exercise in marketing, not even marginal science. People make a living selling fossil fuels indirectly by denying the negative impacts in almost exactly the same way they sold so many cigarettes for so long long by concealing how dangerous they are.

Big tobacco and climate change denial

It's basically lying for a living in the interests of a product that is eventually going to kill off not just billions of people if left un-mitigated, it will take out a huge swack of the entire biosphere just like any carbon dioxide driven extinction event in the past. The tobacco industry used denial of the science to "recruit" replacement smokers for the ones their products killed.

We don't have a replacement Earth.

Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

Tom Curtis at 08:05 AM on 29 March, 2017

Grumpymel @91 and 92, the claim above is a rebutal of denier claims that human respiration is a direct source of the increase of atmospheric CO2, just as is the combustion of fossil fuels. That claim by deniers is typified by the quote from Ian Plimer, that

"If Senator Wong was really serious about her science she would stop breathing because you inhale air that's got 385 parts per million carbon dioxide in it and you exhale air with about ten times as much, and that extra carbon comes from what you eat."

Of course, if Ian Plimer was at all honest in his science (on global warming) he would have noted that the carbon in what we eat comes from CO2 in the atmosphere, and consequently Senator Penny Wong's, and our respiration causes no direct increase in CO2 concentration.

That is a seperate question as to whether or not human agricultural activity has changed atmospheric content. It has, and in complex ways. Of these the most important have been the increase in CO2 from deforestation, and the increase in CH4 from rice farming and cattle production. Nothing above denies this, and there is extensive discussion of this in comments above. Further, the IPCC takes account of CO2 and CH4 production from these scources.

For what it is worth, CO2 emissions due to Land Use Change (the title given to those emissions) represents about 10% of emissions from fossil fuel use and cement manufacture (another important source).

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Doug_C at 06:39 AM on 18 March, 2017

nigelj @29

I think that puts it really well, scientists are trying to describe a very complex global system in a period of rapid transition, I think they are doing a very good job in presenting the physical aspects of climate change and the very likely cause. That is the billions of tons of carbon dioxide that us people have added to the natural carbon cycle over the last couple hundred years.

The science backing this up goes back just as far, with the discovery of how much warmer the Earth is due to some unkown factor in the 1820s to the discovery of what was likely creating the warming in 1850s with John Tyndall demonstrating the ability of water vapour and carbon dioxide to trap heat.

You need to learn a broad range of subjects to get a comprehensive picture of what is actually taking place, in my case this has involved learning some quantum mechanics, reading up on ocean circulation, glaciology, geology, paleotology, laser spectroscopy, biology and much more.

All these disciplines are pointing in the same direction in regards to climate change and causation, to claim that the science isn't clear and isn't well communicated is totally inaccurate in my experience. At that time I was living in Edmonton Alberta and although the city has a strong link to the fossil fuel sector the public library system there had extensive materials on this and related topics. The resources are many including this site.

There were also texts that covered the industry sposored disinformation campaign so there's very little doubt in my mind why in 2017 this is still a subject of "doubt". The amounts of money spent to distort the science is staggering as is the money spent lobbying politicians to enact policies that don't reflect the clear science. One figure I remember clearly was over $100 million being spent by Washington DC fossil fuel sector lobbyist in 2009 alone to sway politicians in their interests.

Sure there is psychology at work here that prevents people from coming together in an effective way to assert their long term interests, but a lot of that destructive psychology has been intentionally prgrammed into global culture in the same way many products are sold. On a mass media level there has been a very concerted effort to brand fossil fuels as good and essential and those who threaten their continued use as dangerous.

When if you take the time to look at the facts is almost the opposite from what the evidence says. George Monbiot did a great piece on the roots of the climate change denial movement and its outgrowth from the efforts of the tobacco lobby to deny the evidence of the link of tobacco and serious health risks.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2

Any genuine sceptic would be challenging the true presenters of misinformation of a highly destructive and inaccurate nature in todays world. And that is not coming from climatologists or any authentic researcher in climate change related fields today.

Adams and anyone actually concerned about this issue shoud be directing their ire at the parties that have created such a chaotic global forum of information. The Royal Society of London took the extraordinary step of criticizing Exxon Mobil in 2006 for funding climate change denial but this has not ended the denial campaign. As reported in Scientific American, massive funders of denial have moved to techniques more closely related to things like laundering money for the illegal drug trade. It's hard to even know where the money is coming from to broadcast denial on a global level.

These are the things we should all be deeply concerned about.

CO2 lags temperature

Adri Norse Fire at 23:06 PM on 14 February, 2017

I do not understand why no message arrived in my mail, I'm sorry for not responding before.

Daniel Bailey.

-It is a joy to see that the conclusions of your "BEST" team coincide with virtually all studies on Antarctic ice cores: "Data from ice core records strongly suggest that the prehistoric carbon dioxide changes were largely a response, ''not a cause'', of temperature changes ''. But, they say: '' However, [...] Seawater has high radiocarbon; Fossil fuels have none. "Forgive my ignorance but how do they know that the radiocarbon is not lost in the process? How do they know that CO2 does not come from other sources that also have low levels of radicarbon? Let me disagree with your best team, but I find their conclusions a bit forced. And they end: "it is clear that it is the CO2 that comes first, not the warming". Well, it is not what your own data show, but I could make some concession for the last century.

And I think I can rebut some of your 10 main statements:

1. The beginning of global warming coincides with the end of the small Ice Age, therefore natural;

2. The stages of higher industrial growth of mankind do not coincide with the increase in temperature.

3. That does not prove that CO2 produces global warming.

4. The same.

5. Again, that only says that the source of co2 has no volcanic origins, but it is not a proof that CO2 produces warming.

6. Same.

7. Same.

8. Same.

9. Same.

10. And Same.

Come on man, my original question was not difficult; Or is it that the basis of global anthropogenic warming is a coincidence?

Tom Curtis.

'' [...] Then it was driven by a feedback cycle of greenhouse gases (CO2 and methane) ''. Only? Where are the biggest greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? Like water vapor, for example. Secondly, these are correlations always based on recent times. But the only certainty is that ice cores are not subject to interpretations or complicated mathematical operations that can be manipulated. Anyway, allow me the freedom to doubt the credibility of those correlations you have shown.

John Hartz.

Again, how do you know that CO2 is responsible for the observed warming since the end of the small Ice Age? The only way CO2 can influence climate is through the greenhouse effect, but CO2 is only a minor gas between greenhouse gases and the amount of CO2 produced by man is an even smaller percentage. How do you know that the rest of the greenhouse gases have nothing to do with it?

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #4

Tom Curtis at 11:22 AM on 1 February, 2017

Ravenken @5, the particulate matter is soot, which contributes to global warming, and is accounted for in models as Black Carbon (BC). Coal or oil with high sulfur contents also release sulfur dioxide (an invisible gas). That reacts with components in the atmosphere to form sulfates, very small particles that reflect sunlight and also form cloud condensation nuclei. As a result of the latter, the presence of sulfates will result in more, but smaller water droplets in a cloud, which results in a greater cloud albedo, and reduced rainfall. The effects of sulfates are taken into account as the aersol direct effect (the albedo of sulfates), and the aerosol indirect effect (the impact on clouds by providing cloud condensation nuclei). Combined the consequences of these two effects is what is generally called global dimming. As both effects are taken into account in climate models, so also are the effects of global dimming. However, the uncertainty of the strength of the two effects is one of the largest uncertainties in climate science.

From the above, you should see that the impact of reduced aerosols from shutting down fossil fuel energy sources is taken into account in scenarios with rapid decarbonization of the economy.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Tom Curtis at 08:02 AM on 18 January, 2017

RM @210, claims that "Degassification is a primary natural source of carbon dioxide. It leaves the ocean, rather than dissolving in it." That contrasts with the findings Sabine et al (2004) who find that:

"The global ocean inventory estimated here permits us, for the first time, to place observational constraints on the anthropogenic CO2 budget for the anthropocene. In particular, it permits us to estimate the magnitude of the time integrated terrestrial carbon balance which cannot be easily deduced from observations. We first consider the anthropogenic budget terms that are relatively well constrained. Over the anthropocene, about 244±20 Pg C was emitted into the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels and cement production. About two thirds of these emissions have remained in the atmosphere, increasing the atmospheric CO2 concentration from about 281±2 ppm in 1800 (20) to 359±0.4 ppm in 1994 (21) translating to an increase of 165 Pg C. Subtracting our ocean inventory estimate of 118±19 Pg C and the atmospheric inventory change from the integrated fossil fuel emissions constrains the net carbon balance of the terrestrial biosphere to be a net source of 39±28 Pg C for the period between 1800 and 1994.Therefore the ocean has constituted the only true net sink for anthropogenic CO2 over the last 200 years. Without this oceanic uptake, atmospheric CO2 would be about 55 ppm higher today than what is currently observed (~370 ppm)."

This is one of a large number of similar studies with similar findings. Against these evidence based, peer reviewed studies, RM provides only the evidence of his own assertion (again).

CO2 lags temperature

Daniel Bailey at 00:55 AM on 11 January, 2017

"how do you know that the current increase in temperature (+ -0.5 ° C since the end of the Little Ice Age) is due to the action of the tiny fraction of the atmosphere composed of greenhouse gases and among them the tiny part composed of CO2"

Off-topic, but I'll answer anyway and risk the ire of the moderators.

Scientists have a pretty good understanding of what the Earth's climate has been throughout it's history, why it has changed over time and what the specific factors are that have made the climate change.

And the only factor that fully explains all the changes we can see and measure in temperatures, ocean salinity, atmospheric composition, loss of Arctic sea ice volume, changing species habitats & ranges is due to the warming from human-derived fossil-fuel CO2 we have put back into the carbon cycle.

We have accurate, reliable data for the growth of atmospheric CO2 and for anthropogenic emissions (for details, see Cawley, 2011). The fact that the net natural flux is negative clearly shows that natural uptake has exceeded natural emissions every year for the last fifty years at least, and hence has been opposing, rather than causing the observed rise in atmospheric CO2.

It is true that the fluxes between the oceans and atmosphere depend on temperature, so all things being equal, one would expect atmospheric CO2 to rise in a warming world.

However, the thing the fake-skeptics and compulsive liars normally ignore is that CO2 solubility increases with increasing difference in the partial pressures of CO2 between atmosphere and surface waters.

In the real world, all things are not equal, our emissions have caused a difference in partial pressures, which is increasing the oceanic uptake, which more than compensates for the temperature driven change in fluxes.

The human-caused origin (anthropogenic) of the measured increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is a cornerstone of predictions of future temperature rises.

As such, it has come under frequent attack by people who challenge the science of global warming. One thing noteworthy about those attacks is that the full range of evidence supporting the anthropogenic nature of the CO2 increase seems to slip from sight. So what is the full range of supporting evidence?

There are ten main lines of evidence to be considered:

1. The start of the growth in CO2 concentration coincides with the start of the industrial revolution, hence anthropogenic;

2. Increase in CO2 concentration over the long term almost exactly correlates with cumulative anthropogenic emissions, hence anthropogenic;

3. Annual CO2 concentration growth is less than Annual CO2 emissions, hence anthropogenic; (Link, Link)

4. Declining C14 ratio indicates the source is very old, hence fossil fuel or volcanic (ie, not oceanic outgassing or a recent biological source);

5. Declining C13 ratio indicates a biological source, hence not volcanic;

6. Declining O2 concentration indicate combustion, hence not volcanic;

7. Partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean is increasing, hence not oceanic outgassing;

8. Measured CO2 emissions from all (surface and beneath the sea) volcanoes are one-hundredth of anthropogenic CO2 emissions; hence not volcanic;

9. Known changes in biomass too small by a factor of 10, hence not deforestation; (Link, Link)

10. Known changes of CO2 concentration with temperature are too small by a factor of 10, hence not ocean outgassing.

The current, and ongoing, increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is due to human industrial activities. In scientific circles this is the climatological equivalent of the Earth being round - a fact so plainly obvious and supported by such a vast body of scientific evidence that to question its reality is absurd.

It quickly becomes clear that it is the humans who have caused the rise in CO2 levels, by burning fossil fuels in the twentieth century. Every other hypothesis makes a host of predictions that do not pass the test of the evidence.

H/T to Tom Curtis, from which much of the above is sourced.

Please stay on-topic from now on. Thousands of threads exist here on virtually every topic related to climate change imaginable. Use the Search function to find the most appropriate thread and place your questions there.

There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

john warner at 02:48 AM on 10 December, 2016

Nigelj @ 28 I appreciate the opportunity to explain the design of my linear regression.There are scientific concerns and statistical concerns. When there are known laws of physics you don’t have to use statistical analysis to generate coefficients for calculating the effect of carbon dioxide on air temperature. But in order to calculate the effect that air temperature has on the quantity of carbon dioxide in the air we do. We know that colder water absorbs carbon dioxide at a faster rate than hotter water. Assuming that water temperature and air temperature annually globally vary together we can model that if air temperature goes down the water temperature will go down also and absorb more carbon dioxide. If that assumption is wrong the regression coefficient will tell us with a change of sign. I assume that all of the gross increase in carbon dioxide emissions each year comes from humans burning fossil fuels and other organic material. Since more than average carbon dioxide is being absorbed we think the net growth in carbon dioxide left in the air will be decreased. On the other hand if the air temperature is higher than normal we assume that the water temperature will be higher and that less carbon dioxide will be absorbed. Then the annual growth in carbon dioxide in the air will be larger. To be scientifically correct we have to model changes in the magnitude of the annual increase of carbon dioxide as a function of the air temperature. This makes carbon dioxide the dependent variable and air temperature the independent variable. If we use anomalies as the measure of temperature around the 1981 to 2010 baseline, on the graph of the regression results 0.0 on the x axis will also represent when the anomaly is 0.0. The statistical consideration is that when dealing with time series data and the quantities are autocorrelated the scatter of plots is not a random sample. This problem was avoided by modeling dC for carbon dioxide and anomalies for temperature. Also when it is obvious the variables are correlated with a third variable time you have a multicolinearity problem. Modeling dC and T anomalies avoids this problem also. If you graph the regression, the sloping line wii intersect the y axis at 1.7. This means when the anomaly is 0.0oK the carbon dioxide growth is 1.7ppm/yr. If the temperature anomaly is higher the carbon dioxide growth rate is higher. If the temperature is lower the growth rate is lower. 58% of the variation in the growth rate per year of carbon dioxide is explained by the earth’s air temperature. Between 1979 and 2011 the mean growth was 1.7ppm per year. The regression coefficient says if the air temperature goes up 1.0oK the growth rate of carbon dioxide will go up 1.94ppm/yr for a total of 3.64ppm/yr.

I took time away from my mission because I wanted to prove that I know my science by evaluating Tom Curtis’s carbon dioxide sensitivity coefficient linear regression. I want to tie things up on this subject. Tom Curtis said the GMST is a proxy for air temperature. 70% of GMST temperatures are ship log sea surface temperature. We already know ocean temperature is the primary determinant of carbon dioxide absorption. From a practical point the variation in the data for Tom’s dependent variable comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures. On the independent variable, carbon dioxide radiative forcing is a close derivative of the change in carbon dioxide per year. In essence, regardless of the labels he put on the variables he was regressing sea surface temperatures against the change in carbon dioxide per year. The order of causation is wrong but the attained R2 is the same.

Trump and the GOP may be trying to kneecap climate research

john warner at 23:11 PM on 6 December, 2016

Tom Curtis @ 15 I like to get to the heart of the matter and I don't feel like typing pages of notes to justifying my petty technical criticisms. I realize the incredible scientific inferences about reality from the summary statistics you report will easily survive my petty criticisms. I looked at how you calculated your independent variable and the scale on the x axis. Carbon dioxide concentration increased 1.7wpsm in 163 years. Carbon dioxide added 0.01 watt per square meter of radiative forcing every year and controlled 81.1% of the of the earth's air temperature variation for 163 years. And just one watt per square meter of infrared radiation absorbed by this gas can raise the earth's air temperature 0.58oK. None of these inferences conformed to reality. [mod. - Are you suggesting here that every PhD level researcher, every National Academies, and all the most prestigious scientific institutions around the world, all don't understand the basic science on climate change? It's a stunningly audacious statement!] My understanding of the global warming controversy is that the earth controls its own temperature [How? By what mechanism or process does this happen?] and there should not be a correlation between forcing factors and air temperature. That is why in comment 9 I showed how the earth mitigates a 23.5wpsm change in solar radiation power every year. In the comment at 17 I regressed change in carbon dioxide against air temperature and found that temperature explained 58% of the variation in carbon dioxide. But I also regressed air temperature against the change in carbon dioxide and also got an R² of 58% but the regression results did conform to reality. Returning to your regression the challenge was to figure out how you could you get such a high correlation with annual air temperatures born of chaos with a de dimimus forcing factor and a carbon dioxide sensitivity coefficient 2.951 times higher than the theoretical scientific value. And the answer was obvious. A proxy measure for air temperature was being regressed against another proxy measure for air temperature. But since proxy measures are so bad, why the high correlation. When the ocean temperature is higher less atmospheric CO2 is sequestered from the CO2 created from burning fossil fuel and the parts per million increase for the year is higher than average. This would result in a higher annual increase in carbon dioxide radiative forcing for that year. If the ocean temperature is lower more atmospheric carbon dioxide is sequestered in the ocean and the parts per million increase in the air for the year is lower than average. The result is a decrease in radiative forcing for that year. The physical connection between the two variables could not be closer because the dependent variable is the Global Mean Surface Temperature and 70% of the GMST is sea surface temperatures measured by ship logs and recently by satellites. Finally, why is the sensitivity so high. In a linear regression if I enter the data for the independent variable by one decimal place to small the coefficient will be one decimal place to high. By entering a too low forcing factor for the independent variable you got a too high carbon dioxide sensitivity coefficient. As currently generated it has no scientific meaning. Whatever it is, it shows a relationship between carbon dioxide in the air and sea surface temperatures, which we already know. In order to have the moral force of science for public policy, a quantitative scientific study has to have a rigorous scientific explanation and the summary statistics have to conform to reality.

Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup

scaddenp at 06:52 AM on 18 November, 2016

Lets not get into handwavy arguments. The relevant diagram is already on this thread here. Long term burial of carbon by plants etc takes place at rate about 0.2Pg C per year. Emissions from fossils fuels and land use change are about 9Pg C per year.

Not to mention the obvious fact that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising, and that the isotopic composition of CO2 in atmosphere is consistent with addition coming from FF.

Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 1

nigelj at 08:23 AM on 2 October, 2016

JW Rebel @10, I agree that politics and group identity play a big part in climate change denialism, and that this apples to everyone, religious or otherwise.

I would add the costs of a transition to fossil fuels worries everyone, possibly some people more than others depending on world views and priorities and fears about government impositions. This leads them to attack the science.

However religious conviction is an issue with young earthers and Christian fundamentalists. They see climate change as a threat to some very basic religious convictions as follows. It’s not that they look at the age of the earth as such. Instead, they have a strong conviction that god created the world largely as it is quite recently and that god wouldn’t allow us to substantially change the world. This would make us as powerful as god, which doesn’t fit with the bible as a whole. There are gradations of belief in this, but it sums up a large viewpoint. This is all foreign to me as an atheist who believes in evolution and I don’t understand how they think that way, but they do very deeply.

The best approach may be to argue that humanity has clearly altered the atmosphere with particulate emissions from coal etc, so carbon dioxide is a similar issue, and steer clear of suggesting we have irrevocably altered the climate permanently or interfered with gods plan.

There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

MA Rodger at 04:07 AM on 21 August, 2016

Victor Grauer @82.
Trawling the literature to find useful-sounding quotes to add weight to an argument is all very fine but in doing so you do introduce the references you cite into the discussion. And as you fail to indicate why you introduce these four refences @82 I will have to assume that you are defending your bold assertion @78 - "researchers do not see CO2 emissions as a significant contributor to the warmup during this period."I have to say that I see these references actually doing the exact opposite and pulling the rug from under your bold assertion.

Your first reference is to an SkS page but you stick with the 'basic' version when there is also an 'advanced' version that states:-

"Although humans were not burning very large amounts of fossil fuels or emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the early 20th Century, relative to the late century, CO2 emissions were non-negligible and did play a role in the early century warming. ... As you can see, the best estimate of the anthropogenic contribution to the 1910-1940 warming is approximately 0.1 to 0.15°C."

This seems to be quite definite in saying that AGW (of which CO2 is the largest contributor) is indeed a "significant contributor" but not a dominant one. (Victor - Nil points.)

Your second reference, Thompson et al (2005) 'Early twentieth-century warming linked to tropical Pacific wind strength' says a lot more than 'the early warming was almost 30% of the total when AGW was relatively weak.' (Note this 30% figure chimes well with my rough calculation presented @77 while "relatively weak" is not what you would call an exact evaluation and without context says diddly-squat.) For instance, the paper also says:-

"Between 1910 and 1940, global temperature warmed by 0.4 °C (Fig. 1) under an increase in anthropogenic forcing of only 0.3Wm^2, compared with 0.75 °C of warming under a 1.5Wm^2 increase since 1970 (refs 1,9,10; Fig. 1). Detection/attribution studies with three generations of global coupled climate models have indicated that at least some of this early century warming was probably due to natural factors, such as very few volcanic eruptions and an increase in solar output (Fig. 1). However, the magnitude of observed warming is greater than that simulated by climate models with forcing from external sources alone (0.20-0.25 °C; ref. 10), suggesting that internal variability played an important role in the early twentieth-century warming."

Fig 1 confirms that AGW was a "significant contributor" to early 20th century warming and it would be a strange reading of the paper that concluded that these "researchers do not see CO2 emissions as a significant contributor to the warmup during this period." (Victor - Nil points.)

Your third reference, Nozawa et al (2005), 'Detecting natural influence on surface air temperature change in the early twentieth century', presents somewhat different findings. It tells us that their initial modelling shows a large impact from GHGs throughout the 20th century, early & late, but when the net contribution of AGW is considered "the warming due to WMGHGs is offset by a cooling due to increases in anthropogenic aerosols, resulting in no significant warming until 1950s."
Yet here the size of the GHG contribution is large enough for them to say "The trend of the global annual mean SAT in GHG is nearly equal to that in NTRL; therefore, without further investigation, we cannot conclude which factors are the main contributors to the observed early warming."
The paper's eventual finding revolves around attribution rather than the power of the various forcings.

"The natural forcing causes a warming trend of ~0.6K/century, which is about one half of the observed trend. This is consistent with the global annual mean SAT anomalies simulated in NTRL (Figure 1). The residual of the observed trend (~0.4K/century) may be caused by the combined anthropogenic forcings, primarily by the WMGHGs. However, the two anthropogenic signals are highly uncertain and are not detected. Therefore the cause of the residual trend is not obvious."

This is a better account than your quote @82 from the paper's abstract. It is plain that the message from the paper is that GHG forcing (of which CO2 is the dominant contributor) are a "significant contributor". (Victor - nil points.)

Your final reference is Meehl (2003) 'Solar and Greenhouse Gas Forcing and Climate Response in the Twentieth Century'. This is packed full of interesting stuff but again it would be a very strange reading of it which concluded that these "researchers do not see CO2 emissions as a significant contributor to the warmup during this period." You only have to note Figure 1 which shows the AGW (GHG +sulfate) contribution to the early 20th century warming to be as large as solar's (with volcanic missing). (Victor - Nil points.)

So Victor, that is a pretty impressive score you have achieved @82. Well done you.

There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

MA Rodger at 20:04 PM on 20 August, 2016

Victor Grauer @82.

Trawling the literature to find useful-sounding quotes to add weight to an argument is all very fine but in doing so you do introduce the references you cite into the discussion. And as you fail to indicate why you introduce these four refences @82 I will have to assume that you are defending your bold assertion @78 - "researchers do not see CO2 emissions as a significant contributor to the warmup during this period." I have to say that I see these references actually doing the exact opposite and pulling the rug from under your bold assertion.

Your first reference is to an SkS page but you stick with the 'basic' version when there is also an 'advanced' version that states:-

"Although humans were not burning very large amounts of fossil fuels or emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the early 20th Century, relative to the late century, CO2 emissions were non-negligible and did play a role in the early century warming. ... As you can see, the best estimate of the anthropogenic contribution to the 1910-1940 warming is approximately 0.1 to 0.15°C."

This seems to be quite definite in saying that AGW (of which CO2 is the largest contributor) is indeed a "significant contributor" but not a dominant one. (Victor - Nil points.)

Your second reference, Thompson et al (2015) 'Early twentieth-century warming linked to tropical Pacific wind strength' says a lot more than 'the early warming was almost 30% of the total when AGW was relatively weak.' (Note this 30% figure chimes well with my rough calculation presented @77 while "relatively weak" is not what you would call an exact evaluation and without context says diddly-squat.) For instance, the paper also says:-

"Between 1910 and 1940, global temperature warmed by 0.4 C (Fig. 1) under an increase in anthropogenic forcing of only 0.3Wm

CO2 is not the only driver of climate

billev at 02:06 AM on 24 May, 2016

When I say contiuous warming I am referring to those parts of the NOAA graphs of Global mean temperature from around 1910 until the early 1940's and from about 1974 until around 2002. I made no reference to the fact that those temperatures are obviously subject to the effects of other factors. There is currently a World wide debate over whether or not to move from the use of fossil fuels in order to reduce the production of carbon dioxide because it is causing global warming. What measurements have been made to show how much of the amount of temperature rise since around 1910 can be directly attributed to the rise in carbon dioxide levels?

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

villabolo at 04:48 AM on 14 May, 2016

Hi John C, you might want to use this quote from the United States Geological Survey as regards the amount of CO2 released by volcanoes compared to human emmissions:

Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO2 budget in the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO2 is released by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.

This might be a more digestible reference for a basic level audience compared to a quote from two scientific papers.

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